Gender and temp.

[jessiebrooke]

I was told that if the eggs are colder then you will hatch pullets and if its hot you get cockerals. Ive never heard of it before and wanted to know if its true or not.

 

[Better Than Rubies]

I've never heard that before, but that is so not true. God creates the birds, and what gender He decides it will be--He knows it even before the egg is laid--that He will make it be, no matter the context surrounding it.

 

[Pyxis]

That is not true. A chicken's sex is determined at the time the egg is created within the hen. Chickens have sex chromosomes just like we do, and the hen provides one and the rooster provides the other. As soon as an egg is created within the hen, it is either a Z or a W - Z will be male, and W will be female. Then a rooster provides a Z chromosome when the egg is fertilized and development begins.

So unfortunately, while temperature does determine the gender of the babies in some animals like crocodiles, it does not determine the gender in chickens.

What you may have heard of is that eggs that are refrigerated are slightly more likely to hatch more females than males, but that has nothing to do with the gender of the egg changing due to it being refrigerated. Rather, the female embryos seem to tolerate the cold better than the males, so more male embryos will die during refrigeration than females and so when you incubate you'll get a higher female to male ratio because the males will have died.

And even that only leads to a very slight difference in the ratio.

 

[jessiebrooke]

Thank you everyone thats interesting ive been wondering about it. I love learning new things like this.

 

[BlueBaby]

That is not true. A chicken's sex is determined at the time the egg is created within the hen. Chickens have sex chromosomes just like we do, and the hen provides one and the rooster provides the other. As soon as an egg is created within the hen, it is either a Z or a W - Z will be male, and W will be female. Then a rooster provides a Z chromosome when the egg is fertilized and development begins.

So unfortunately, while temperature does determine the gender of the babies in some animals like crocodiles, it does not determine the gender in chickens.

What you may have heard of is that eggs that are refrigerated are slightly more likely to hatch more females than males, but that has nothing to do with the gender of the egg changing due to it being refrigerated. Rather, the female embryos seem to tolerate the cold better than the males, so more male embryos will die during refrigeration than females and so when you incubate you'll get a higher female to male ratio because the males will have died.

And even that only leads to a very slight difference in the ratio.

If the refrigerator trick thing is true, then how long do you have to refrigerate the eggs to get that result?

 

[Pyxis]

If the refrigerator trick thing is true, then how long do you have to refrigerate the eggs to get that result?

I haven't read the full study, so I'm not sure if there was a length of time they needed to be stored at, but the temperature to store them at for this affect is 40 degrees.

You can read the abstract here, but you need to pay $25 if you want to read the whole study: http://www.publish.csiro.au/cp/AR9600664

 

[Dawnclucks22]

I've heard that and it's a myth. Sorry.

 

[BlueBaby]

I've heard that and it's a myth. Sorry.

Thank's, anyway's. I didn't think that it would, but I was also hoping to be wrong.