Is it True????

[4roosandahen]

I read somewhere that the hen determines the sex of the chicks..... is this true? If it is true does that mean she will have only pullets or roos or can it change per broody cycle?
I hope this isn't to dumb of a question but, I never know what too believe on the internet. Thought this might be a fairly reliable group to ask though.
Stephenie

 

[speckledhen]

It is true, but I would think that she would tend to produce one sex over the other, but not necessarily all the time. BTW, I love your avatar. It's beautiful.

 

[wegotchickens]

If so, Speckled Hen, does Velvet throw hens or roos?

 

[4roosandahen]

Quote:
Thanks speckledHen, it is our hen "Pecker" (kids named herl).

 

[speckledhen]

Honestly, I know she throws both, but I don't have an actual count of the ratio. I don't recall whose baby my Delilah is, but I think she's Velvet's. And I know the Splash cockerel was Skye's, as was the splash cockerel that Jess in California hatched. Christina in Washington got a pullet from Velvet, I do know that. Seems like Skye throws more cockerels than Velvet does from the ones I remember, but I could be off.
4roos, I recently lost a SLW hen named Lacy and that reminded me so much of her. I still have two others, but yours looked more like Lacy than them.

 

[hinkjc]

I thought it was determined by the chromosome match, similar to humans. Hmmm..I'll have to read up on that more.

Jody

 

[twigg]

I've never it it being specifically identified that individual hens produce either male or female chicks.

Here is an interesting thing though .... humans can.

Following both World Wars there was a significant difference in the ratio of boy to girl babies. Something sophisticated and not well understood was going on, to do with the population as a whole recognising the need to replace the boys who had been killed.

 

[muffi]

I have been trying to understand this phenomenon too. This article from the European Molecular Biology Organization is helpful. http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v2/n3/full/embor459.html

 

[conny63malies]

from what i know that only works with turtles and a few other reptiles. Where the incubating temp determines the sex of the hatchling.

 

[halfwaynowhere]

from what I understand about birds, the females determine the sex of the offspring. in humans, females are XX and males are XY. In birds, its the other way around (although I don't recall if they are represented by the same letters, but for simplicity's sake, its not important). I think its still probably around 50/50, but then again, you see some families where they have 5 boys, and no girls, so it could still work that way with birds.
I'm not so good with the technical stuff, I researched this a year ago when my sister was breeding cockatiels, and I was looking into sex-linked genes. Its all pretty interesting still.