Hen or Rooster, who decides the sex of the chick?

[Mesquite]

All the chicks that my hens have managed to hatch (three hatchings of 2) have been roosters. Although it is nice to have fresh chicken for the pot I want to make sure the hens replace themselves occasionally. Do I need to send one of the older roosters to the pot and let one of the young one replace him or just be patient?

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

Hens are the deciding factors in sex. Males are ZZ while females are ZW.

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

6 chicks is a very small number and that could be why you ended up with all roosters. Generally, the larger the hatch the more likely to get that 50/50 split between roosters and hens. Also, I have heard that by added Apple Cider Vinegar to their water will somehow result in a higher hatch of female chicks. I don't have any real data on that, but you probably could do a search on ACV on BYC. Don't get rid of them yet!

 

[snowbird]

Quote:
From all the books I have read this is just not true. If you have the book by Morley Jull, Poultry Breeding go to page #109 and it explains it with a chart also included.

 

[Mahonri]

I've always been taught it is the hen.

I've also had hens that have only thrown roos. weird I know.

 

[juliette2009]

Quote:
Well, I use ACV for all by birds from Day 1, and all I have to say is that out of 100 or so chicks hatched this past year, 3/4's of them were males!!! I would pay dearly for the secret to hatching out more females!!!

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Quote:
From all the books I have read this is just not true. If you have the book by Morley Jull, Poultry Breeding go to page #109 and it explains it with a chart also included.

Here is a link to the University of Kentucky's School of Ag. website where they do say that Hens are the hetergenous sex, therefore they are the ones who determine gender of offspring. This is how sex-linkage is able to "work" in birds, also.

http://www.ca.uky.edu/smallflocks/sex_linked_crosses.html

 

[RAREROO]

I have also been taught that in birds, it is the mother that determines the sex of the offspring. But just an interesting note that I had experience with was that I had 5 barred rock hens that I was using to make black sexlinks with and I only did a few hatchings with each rooster, but when I had them with the Buff Orp roo, they produced about half and half pullets and cockerels and when the Buff roo died and I put a RIR roo in, they produced ALL pullets in the few hatchings of small numbers of chicks that I did.

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

An abstract from a scientific journal explaining that males are ZZ while females are ZW.
http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v2/n3/full/embor459.html

 

[Karrie13]

I don't have any luck at all hatching out hens... I have hatched out 20 chicks this year and have only 2 hens to show for it. My last hatch of a dozen resulted in all boys. Just heard the first crow, or attempt at crowing, today.

But anyway... I have also heard it is the hen that determines the sex of the chick.