Poor Hubby just had to explain the birds and bees of chickens

[silkiechicken]

Hens have a reservoir in them, so they can store the sperm. A rule of thumb is if you don't want a old roo's sperm to fertilize eggs to hatch, let at least 3 weeks pass, as each new egg that comes down from the ovaries can be fertilzed with whats in storage.

 

[S0rcy]

From what I have observed: City children do not get rural education. : whispers : s ...e...x... between ANYTHING is not discussed period. It's obsessive avoidance. My daughters "human education" class was a crock! They were more flustered at getting the kids to sit quietly than trying to get them to learn anything. My mother herself was horrified that I taught my kids the basics about animal reproduction. It's a mixture of things that allows people to be ignorant of basic physical processes on this planet. I no longer depend on the education system to teach my kids things they should know that the school is unwilling or unable to provide. I provide that information and the discipline to make sure they listen and learn. My husband argued with me that we needed a rooster after I had taken a college biology class that covered it. I had to show him in a biology book WHY the chicken did not need a rooster to produce an egg.
The belief of fertilizing through a shell is a common misconception. People occasionally think of anything different in terms of what they do know .. frogs, fish, etc.
I am ruthless when children of other parents come up to me and ask me questions about babies. If the parents have not explained it, they know by the time I get through.

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[ncgnance]

I've had alot of fun educating my friends about the sex life of a chicken. You should see the looks on their faces when I tell them where the rooster's "testicles" are..I always say, "don't tell me you thought they were down THERE, just floppin' around in the breeze..." or "why do you think he flaps his wings when he's through...?" That always gets a good laugh.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

This is a very common misconception. I know when I was younger, I thought the eggs were fertilized after being laid. Even argued with someone about it. LOL

I remember I was at my grandfather's farm(yes, he's a farmer in Michigan) and he took us into the coop to gather eggs. Somehow we got to talking about that subject, I think I asked "Are there baby chickens in the eggs?" I do believe his response was "No, because the rooster didn't sit on the nest and fertilize the eggs." My little mind shrugged it off and I thought birds were just like fish.

Later I wondered how it was fertilized through the hard egg shell and it wasn't until I owned chickens myself that I realized I was "misinformed." LOL Looking back I can't believe that he would tell me something like that, this being a man that raises chicken and cattle and grows his own crops. I am thinking he just didn't want to give his grandaughter the talk in the coop.

I was also told that the eggs are laid without a shell and it was exposure to air that caused it to form a shell.

This is how I assumed it made it possible for the rooster to fertilize the eggs on the nest through an egg shell. LMAO

So growing up, chicken reproduction went something like this. The hens laid an egg every day in the nest. Once she was done laying she would get off the nest and the awaiting rooster would jump on the nest before the egg formed a shell. He had to be waiting and ready though because the shell would form in only a few minutes. Then the rooster would sit on the eggs until they hatched.

-Kim

 

[Rte.66_chicks]

It's interesting, to say the least. I have a California King snake in my 7th grade classroom, and this year, for the first time, it laid several eggs. This snake was hatched and raised in captivity, and has never even set eyes on another of its species, but the students were all excited about the possibility of baby snakes. I must have attempted to explain that it needed to mate to have fertile eggs a hundred times, and many of them were still saying " Well, there could be a baby snake in them." I really felt like banging my head on a wall-it would have done just as much good, and been more entertaining for the students!

 

[me&thegals]

Hilarious! My sister, a college grad in animal studies, expressed sadness that the baby chicks can't nurse before being shipped to farmers

 

[belibutn]

We've been very upfront with our kids about biology and the reproduction of any species.... earlier with animals than humans, since we have two boys and waiting till when we did, we still got one kid looking like he was gonna hurl all over the place. But when they think of animals mating, it is all very natural and something they are fine with. When one was much younger, about 5, he asked if we could get a male gecko for our female so "Kala can lay babies"

I also was told as a small child that hens lay soft eggs so they don't break when they fall out of the trees, and they harden up later. I grew up thinking that farmers went on daily easter egg hunts, picking up eggs from fence posts, out of trees and stuff like that. My father was even in to 4H as a child, but I think it was mostly pork end of things.

So, I have talked it over with our 12 yr old son, and when we slaughter our first batch of meat birds, we will jar up and float the reproductive systems of a cock and pullet in formaldehyde for science class - we home school, so the chickens really work out well all the way around for us. Hopefully by Halloween, we will have assembled an entire chicken skeleton wired together and cleaned for keeps.

 

[JustChicky]

People come up with some strange ideas.

me&thegals :

Hilarious! My sister, a college grad in animal studies, expressed sadness that the baby chicks can't nurse before being shipped to farmers

This must be the funniest thing I've heard in a while!​

 

[sweetshoplady]

I have pictures of a couple of my chickens at my shop and I said yes its wonderful to get fresh eggs and milk. This man said "You milk your chickens?" I said I didn't think they would let me milk them. I laughed about that for days.

 

[crtrlovr]