Out of curiosity, how does duck gender get decided?

[duckyfromoz]

I agree with everyone above. You get what hatches
I did read that people have tried to hatch in incubators using different temps. Higher temps yielded more males while lower temps yielded more females. I didn't believe it but had to try. It did not work, haha, no surprise. Each hatch was about 50-50. It's mother nature, I do not believe a temp change can determine the sex!

What was your actual overall hatch rate ? The logic behind this theory is that at higher temps more of one gender will expire before hatching- and the the opposite hatch if the temp is lowered. If it were to be true- you would expect say from 100 eggs- to get say 65 live hatchlings- with a ratio somewhere around 45 : 15 Its not that the temp can change the sex- just that the embryos of either sex can better handle and survive certain temperature ranges.

 

[Ridgerunner]

So are some ducks then more prone to laying one gender vs another ? or is it just the roll of the dice that hatch lol

I don't know. Some people claim that but I'm a retired engineer that worked with numbers most of my life. I understand it takes a pretty big sample to get real proof. Odds are funny things. They are consistent over really big samples but in smaller sample sizes, they don't really mean much. A whole lot of my chicken hatches have maybe 2/3 one gender or the other, which can vary, even with the same hens laying the eggs.

 

[Going Quackers]

What was your actual overall hatch rate ? The logic behind this theory is that at higher temps more of one gender will expire before hatching- and the the opposite hatch if the temp is lowered. If it were to be true- you would expect say from 100 eggs- to get say 65 live hatchlings- with a ratio somewhere around 45 : 15 Its not that the temp can change the sex- just that the embryos of either sex can better handle and survive certain temperature ranges.

All duck raised so no control on temps or anything...

 

[Going Quackers]

I don't know. Some people claim that but I'm a retired engineer that worked with numbers most of my life. I understand it takes a pretty big sample to get real proof. Odds are funny things. They are consistent over really big samples but in smaller sample sizes, they don't really mean much. A whole lot of my chicken hatches have maybe 2/3 one gender or the other, which can vary, even with the same hens laying the eggs.

Thanks.. i am probably over analyzing it... just surprised at how many boys i got vs girls but then basing on my luck it shouldn't really surprise me lol

 

[learycow]

What was your actual overall hatch rate ? The logic behind this theory is that at higher temps more of one gender will expire before hatching- and the the opposite hatch if the temp is lowered. If it were to be true- you would expect say from 100 eggs- to get say 65 live hatchlings- with a ratio somewhere around 45 : 15 Its not that the temp can change the sex- just that the embryos of either sex can better handle and survive certain temperature ranges.

I had 40 eggs in each incubator. The higher temp incubator yielded 32 babies, 14 females, 18 males.
The lower temp incubator yielded 35 babies, 16 females, 19 males.

That was with vent sexing soon after drying off. Seems like no matter what I do I always get more males!

But I do understand that the 50/50 rule only applies in big numbers. I usually get that with most hatches (these two yielded just about 50/50, I would call that close enough!) but you do get the occasional hatches where it is no where near 50/50.

I got 27 anconas from Worth it Farms back in the spring. They were sold as straight run. I got 6 females, that's it! I email them to be sure they hadn't sent me males, and she said she simply takes them out of the incubator and puts them in the box to be mailed. No sexing. So there a good example of how the 50/50 didn't work out, but again, that's a small number to compare it to.

 

[learycow]

All duck raised so no control on temps or anything...

I let my muscovy ducks hatch all of their own. I swear they like to hatch males only!
Last year, one hen hatched a total of 62 ducklings (not all in the same clutch of course, it was 3 separate batches). Same drake for all breedings. Out of the 62 ducklings, only 21 were females, the rest males! It worked out ok as I raise the males and sell them for meat (much larger than females) but maybe that answers part of your question. That female/male pair tends to throw lots of males.
As of this year, I have only let her hatch 2 small clutches (I didn't want to be over-run so I took a lot of her eggs). Out of a total of 17 ducklings, she's only given me 7 females. So again, same mother-father combination and mostly males!

 

[Miss Lydia]

I let my muscovy ducks hatch all of their own. I swear they like to hatch males only!
Last year, one hen hatched a total of 62 ducklings (not all in the same clutch of course, it was 3 separate batches). Same drake for all breedings. Out of the 62 ducklings, only 21 were females, the rest males! It worked out ok as I raise the males and sell them for meat (much larger than females) but maybe that answers part of your question. That female/male pair tends to throw lots of males.
As of this year, I have only let her hatch 2 small clutches (I didn't want to be over-run so I took a lot of her eggs). Out of a total of 17 ducklings, she's only given me 7 females. So again, same mother-father combination and mostly males!

I think they need to get a divorce and marry some other ducks

.

 

[Going Quackers]

I let my muscovy ducks hatch all of their own. I swear they like to hatch males only!
Last year, one hen hatched a total of 62 ducklings (not all in the same clutch of course, it was 3 separate batches). Same drake for all breedings. Out of the 62 ducklings, only 21 were females, the rest males! It worked out ok as I raise the males and sell them for meat (much larger than females) but maybe that answers part of your question. That female/male pair tends to throw lots of males.
As of this year, I have only let her hatch 2 small clutches (I didn't want to be over-run so I took a lot of her eggs). Out of a total of 17 ducklings, she's only given me 7 females. So again, same mother-father combination and mostly males!

Oh holy cow, what interesting info!

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

This is an on going live animal experiment our son is doing, he is 2 years in on it now. It will continue another year or 2 before he publishes his results. It has been very interesting so far running hundreds of eggs at a time for each round.

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[ducklucky]

With birds of all types, the female determines the sex, opposite of humans and mammals. But still, the ratio is 2 males for every 1 female SIGH We just can't win, can we?