So I wanted to ask about this. I thought about it, from several comments about how poultry mate. (I'm particularly interested in the duck point of view, but also others.)
So if a pair of ducks mate, I wondered how many eggs are fertilized in the hen's body by that 1 time mating?
I had always assumed that only 1 egg would be fertilized from 1 mating, which would be the egg she'd drop right after that mating session within the next day. But many species do not follow this model actually. With fish, the male passes over the eggs and fertilizes all of them in one shot. They aren't the only species like this; insects also, one female can have the eggs fertilized in one mating ritual (honey bees have the queen mate once and then the rest of her life the eggs are fertile).
It seems to be only possibly or mostly mammals that follow this different model than other types of species of 1 mating for 1 egg.
And several comments even on this site were people that thought it was odd that they never saw their poultry mate, but somehow the eggs were always fertile.
Then you also have the idea that in an organic body for many types of animals, the animal version of felopian tubes holds many eggs that grow and release slowly but with many in there at once, coming out one at a time, but in pictures of them, scientifically the queue of the next eggs coming out look similar size as the others in some species. (So maybe more than one is fertilized?)
This prompted this question, so you know where I'm coming from.
What do you think about this?
So if a pair of ducks mate, I wondered how many eggs are fertilized in the hen's body by that 1 time mating?
I had always assumed that only 1 egg would be fertilized from 1 mating, which would be the egg she'd drop right after that mating session within the next day. But many species do not follow this model actually. With fish, the male passes over the eggs and fertilizes all of them in one shot. They aren't the only species like this; insects also, one female can have the eggs fertilized in one mating ritual (honey bees have the queen mate once and then the rest of her life the eggs are fertile).
It seems to be only possibly or mostly mammals that follow this different model than other types of species of 1 mating for 1 egg.
And several comments even on this site were people that thought it was odd that they never saw their poultry mate, but somehow the eggs were always fertile.
Then you also have the idea that in an organic body for many types of animals, the animal version of felopian tubes holds many eggs that grow and release slowly but with many in there at once, coming out one at a time, but in pictures of them, scientifically the queue of the next eggs coming out look similar size as the others in some species. (So maybe more than one is fertilized?)
This prompted this question, so you know where I'm coming from.
What do you think about this?
