It seems that there are more male chickens hatching this year than normal

[ChickNanny13]

@Uff Da Great hatch, sorry you lost any to the dog Cockerels end up to be some handsome Roos, wish there was a way we could get them to NOT crow so early and often

I've read it's the hen that determines the sex of the chick, any truth?

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I've read it's the hen that determines the sex of the chick, any truth?

Yes, this is true. Because of how chromosomes work. Generally speaking, hens are ZW and roos are ZZ. So when a chick is born it usually inherits one from each parent.

Since the father is ZZ it MUST inherit a Z from the father. Then it has a 50-50 chance of getting Z or W from mom.
Occasionally you get weird anomalies like animals with 1, 3 or even 4 chromosomes instead of two. This occurs more in other, simpler species like moths.
In mammals it's XY, a similar system but determined by the father instead, where females are XX and males are XY. All mammals have XY systems and are much more prone to anomalies like XXY, X0, and XX who develop externally female.

And then reptiles and fish have wack chromosomes which only marginally influence sex, and have more to do with temperature at the right moment in development. (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-temperature-sex-determination-reptiles/)
In fact in many fish, amphibians, and reptiles sex is so fluid that many species change sex in the middle of their lives, at certain ages, reproduce A-sexually, etc.

Having said that, there is some evidence that bird embryos have sex-specific temperature mortality rates.
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1629050/)
But they present as more females hatched out during warmer temperatures. This happens because more male embryos die at high temps and more female embryos die at low temps. But at no point do they ever switch which sex they are during development. By the time the egg is layed the determination of what sex it will be has already taken place.

 

[Chickassan]

I had better luck than last year, four boys and only one girl.
I finally just bought some girls!
This year five girls, three boys.
I only kept one boy though, he's a bit dwarfy and iv'e never had a little rooster, bantam yes dwarfy no.
I do now.

 

[ChickNanny13]

@ChocolateMouse Wow you know genetics That's what I about this site, so much knowledge, wisdom and friendly members

 

[SueT]

My broody's hatch this year was 2 pullets to 2 cockerels.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Folks, this topic has been studied ad nauseam. There is zero scientific evidence that things like temperature influence embryo gender in chickens - or any other birds, especially galiformes. The sex is determined when the yolk drops from the ovary into the infundibulum and a sperm cell enters the blastodisc. Nothing after that has any effect.
Some people may experience trends from year to year. That is merely anecdotal. Tens of billions of chicks hatch each year and it always averages out to be 50:50.
On a road trip my math genius son asked me that very question. In about 2 minutes he calculated in his head the frequency of an all male hatch or all female hatch in a dozen incubated eggs. I forget the exact number but it was about every 55 hatches of a dozen eggs will yield all pullets or all cockerels. That's statistics.
I acknowledge the outside possibility that one sex or another may have higher temperature dependent survivability during different stages of incubation. That doesn't mean one is getting more boys or girls depending on temperature. It just means that more of one gender may die in ovo prior to hatch.

There may be about 20 species of birds which have more of one gender hatch dependent on temperature but for the very reason that temperature affects the survivability of crocodilians during incubation. They are the superprecocial Megapodes. They hatch from the egg in the most mature like condition of any bird species. Like crocodilians they are mound builders. So the incubation temperature is completely dependent on the temperature(microbial activity) of the decaying vegetation in the surrounding mound.

 

[ChickNanny13]

 

[Kabootar]

At our place, my first two hatches were overwhelming female. Like out of 20 chicks, I only had three cockerels. It was awesome because I wanted pullets. My next two hatches were dead even. Out of 26 chicks I believe it's split exactly 50/50. I'm sure next time I'll get stuck with all cockerels.

No worries, you can always caponize the extra cockerels. They will be tame and docile. One of my capons helped me raise several batches of Cornish cross chicks. He used to cover as many chicks as he could and taught them to scratch. He would also keep an eye in the sky for predators. I kept him for more than three years before cooking him.

Capons grow thick and stay tender with flavour of a mature bird but without the gaminess of a rooster and they also fetch high price in the market.

 

[Kabootar]

Cockerels end up to be some handsome Roos, wish there was a way we could get them to NOT crow so early and often

Why? You can always caponize them.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

No worries, you can always caponize the extra cockerels. They will be tame and docile. One of my capons helped me raise several batches of Cornish cross chicks. He used to cover as many chicks as he could and taught them to scratch. He would also keep an eye in the sky for predators. I kept him for more than three years before cooking him.

Capons grow thick and stay tender with flavour of a mature bird but without the gaminess of a rooster and they also fetch high price in the market.

Good plan. Did you teach yourself to caponize?