fertile egg with out rooster

[Keara]

So there was a recent post that faded too quickly; regarding can a hen hatch an egg without a rooster. one responder said..... fact was ..... no it could not happen and the next had a laughing smilie. I just wanted to clear this up; because..... in fact...... an egg can hatch without a rooster.

If a chick hatches from an unfertilized egg it is called parthenogenesis. It's rare I'll grant you, but it happens. Mostly it happens in cornish hen eggs. See referenced link below.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/837/parthenogenesis-embryonic-development-in-unfertilized-eggs-may-impact-normal-fertilization-and-embryonic-mortality

Happens more frequently in frogs and such....

Because this is makes chickens even more interesting in my opinion, I wanted to bring it back up and let everyone know.

 

[harewizard]

hmm.. The article is interesting. I'm sure there has been more development on this since it was written in 2007.

However, you stated in your post that "in fact an egg can hatch without a rooster" and no where in the article did I read this. It states that embriotic activity was present in unfertilized eggs. I'm going back to read again...

still pretty miraculous!

Lisa

 

[georgialee]

That is a very interesting article. However, it said nothing about those eggs hatching. It said embryonic development resembled a 3 day mortality in a fertile egg. To me this means that the cells can start dividing on their own but still need a rooster to complete the chick.