Old OLD argument... Hatching females..

[Attack Chicken]

Well today I was sort of arguing with a person that pretty much doesn't know anything about chickens but has them... I asked if you were going to hatch chicks this year again. The person said "Yes but I need to find a different place other than the place were I got the last leghorn eggs from". I asked why? The person said "Well we ended up with to many boys" (like 7 boys and 3 girls). I told the person that it isn't were you get them from.. the hen chooses the sex of the chick(I believe). Then the person says " No thats not correct..it all depends on the temp. in the incubator, what your feeding them, and certain places you get them".
I just left it at that. I tried to tell this person but whatever I said was false to them... I know this is not true I just had to rant a little...

So to this person you can get more males or females depending on:
Temp.
Food that you are feeding the hen
The place were the hens are at


I'm sorry but people like this just make me mad...I've been raising birds longer than this person and I haven't lost as many....

ETA: I also told this person if there was a way to produce from female chick then hatcheries wouldn't have to kill so many rooster chicks and hatch out more than they need.

 

[QuailHollow]

"Incubation temperature and avian sex ratios -- Although common in reptiles, incubation temperature has not been considered to be a factor in determining sex ratios in birds. However, Goth and Booth (2005) found that incubation temperature does affect sex ratios in megapodes, which are exceptional among birds because they use environmental heat sources for incubation. In the Australian Brush-turkey (Alectura lathami), a mound-building megapode, more males hatch at low incubation temperatures and more females hatch at high temperatures, whereas the proportion is 1:1 at the average temperature found in natural mounds. Chicks from lower temperatures weigh less, which probably affects offspring survival, but are not smaller. Megapodes possess heteromorphic sex chromosomes like other birds, which eliminates temperature-dependent sex determination, as described for reptiles, as the mechanism behind the skewed sex ratios at high and low temperatures. Instead, Goth and Booth (2005) suggest a sex -biased temperature-sensitive embryo mortality because mortality was greater at the lower and higher temperatures, and minimal at the middle temperature where the sex ratio was 1:1."

Ann Goth and David T. Booth. "Temperature-dependent sex ratio in a bird." Biology Letters. 2004.
http://galliform.bhs.mq.edu.au/Megapode_project/Reprints/goeth&booth.pdf (12 Jan. 2010).

Thus, there does not appear to be sufficient scientific evidence to back-up your friend's claim.

 

[Mahonri]

I have to agree with Cyn (she said it somewhere on here). Some hens throw roos, others throw pullets. I got two orders from Melissa (pasofinofarm) last year. All I got was females on both orders with the exception of one GC Marans roo.

 

[k2chickens]

Hey AC, good to see ya! Now personally i think you both are correct and both are wrong at the same time. As far as your insight AC, i do not think the hen can "knowingly" choose the sex of her baby in the egg she just layed. Your forgetting the other half of the chromosomes and genes from the rooster. But then you are right to tell the person they are wrong in thinking that they need to get eggs from somewhere else just because they got too many roo's from their last seller. Really that's just ignorant. They are also wrong in saying that feed and where the hen's live affect the sex of the unborn babies. Now the only thing they might be onto is the temp. thing inside the bator. Now this is just me and my experiences, but, i HAVE got more roo's than hen's with a bator that run's a degree or two hotter than your suppose to. I ended up with a bunch of day 19 pips and day 20 hatches...90% of which were all males...i had one female come out on day 22. Now on my most recent hatch, i got real tough on controlling my temp's to where i knew they were a solid 98.9 to 99.5. Then i had 60/40 hatch.....this time the pullets were the ones to take the bigger hatch percentage. They also hatched on days 21 and 22 and one even into day 23 that stopped at a pip and i hatched myself. That's just my experience, but the person you are talking too seems like they know nothing what so ever about incubation. I would get their e-mail and send this thread link to the after it fills up with a bunch of replies to prove to them them they are wrong lol, but that's just me

 

[thechickenchick]

Quote:
I don't mean to sound rude but are you saying that the sex is not determined when the egg is laid, but rather while it is developing? This doesn't seem possible to me?

 

[bubblebean11]

I don't know what the deal is but I have had somewhere around 15 eggs hatch and not one has been a rooster yet. I dont have a very high hatch rate, but the ones that do hatch are females. Most of the eggs came through the mail but even the ones I hatched from my girls, including my duck that hatched were all female.

 

[Attack Chicken]

Hey Asylum

I forgot to add this person doesn't even know HOW to run the incubator properly. Believe my I tried and tried and TRIED to show this person but they won't listen. That hatches that this person ha incubated all had big water droplets on the plastic windows covering them. I guess if this person wont listen I might have me an almost new hovabator /w turner

since it doesn't "work"

 

[bubblebean11]

And my hatches have all been atleast 1 day late if not more.

 

[canada-goose]

Some people....

 

[k2chickens]

Quote:
I don't mean to sound rude but are you saying that the sex is not determined when the egg is laid, but rather while it is developing? This doesn't seem possible to me?

No, i think the sex is determined with chromosome rooster A is introduced to chromosome hen B. I was simply just stateing "my experiences", mentioned it a few times if you want to go back over my post again.

Quote:
Nice AC. Just offer them 50 bucks for the entire setup since it's "broken"