Egg Shape determined by Rooster??

[Ted Brown]

I am in my fourth year with chickens, spent a year before that reading about coop construction and predator proofing. I started with ISA ready to lays and incubated barnyard mixes from coloured egg layers. I decided to add Chanteclers hens and replace my original Rooster with a Chantecler.

In my experience the eggs from Chanteclers are elongated at the bottom; white shell sometimes tending beige; the two on the right in the picture below are from a Chantecler hen.

HOWEVER, i am now seeing elongation in eggs from my barnyard mixes as shown by two on the left. What is going on?

 

[Ridgerunner]

In genetics in general, not just chicken genetics, the genes come in gene pairs. Each chicken gets one gene in that gene pair from their mother, the other from their father. So both mother and father contribute to everything genetically. That includes eggs and egg shapes. The rooster contributes as much genetics about whether a hen is likely to go broody or not as her mother does, for example. Since roosters don't lay eggs or go broody you may not know what they contribute genetically but they have as much influence as the mother.

This is not technically true because of the sex linked genes. There are always exceptions to make it complicated. A hen gives a copy of her sex linked genes to all her sons but none to her daughters so in some cases the father actually contributes more than the mother to the daughter's genetics.

It's like your nose. Your mother and father both contributed to the shape of your nose. One may have dominated but both contributed.

 

[NatJ]

I decided to add Chanteclers hens and replace my original Rooster with a Chantecler.

In my experience the eggs from Chanteclers are elongated at the bottom; white shell sometimes tending beige; the two on the right in the picture below are from a Chantecler hen.

HOWEVER, i am now seeing elongation in eggs from my barnyard mixes as shown by two on the left. What is going on?

Do those hens have a Chantecler father? If yes, then it is caused by genes he contributed.

But just mating with another rooster will not change what shape of eggs a hen lays. I've seen eggs from a particular hen range from pointy to round on different days. I think the pointy ones are more likely to appear after she's skipped a day, so maybe when the egg stays inside longer it becomes a different shape.

 

[Ted Brown]

Do those hens have a Chantecler father? If yes, then it is caused by genes he contributed.

...

The two eggs on the left DO NOT have a Chantecler father.

Chantecler eggs, in my experience, have a characteristic pointy end. The large majority have this.

I will continue to observe for elgongated eggs with coloured shells as I have had the Chantecler rooster for a few short months.

 

[NatJ]

The two eggs on the left DO NOT have a Chantecler father.

So you're saying the very same hens are laying eggs with a different shape, now that you have a different rooster in with them?

I do not think there is any way for the rooster to cause that. He can affect the egg shape his daughters will lay, but not the egg shape of the hens he mates with.

 

[kcan2]

Very interesting, I have wondered about this myself!
I have a bantam hen whose egg shapes can vary. She has only one rooster. I have seen mostly oval eggs from her, but every now and then she has a long/pointy egg. As @NatJ mentioned, the pointy egg seems more likely to happen when she has skipped a day.

 

[Ted Brown]

So you're saying the very same hens are laying eggs with a different shape, now that you have a different rooster in with them?
...

Limited actual observations but yes.

 

[NatJ]

Limited actual observations but yes.

That's definitely odd

 

[aart]

So you're saying the very same hens are laying eggs with a different shape, now that you have a different rooster in with them?

Limited actual observations but yes.

Could be stress from males advances

 

[Ted Brown]

Could be stress from males advances

To be clear I only have the single Chantecler rooster, several months now. Ten hens.