Sex of Chickens or Keets may depend on TEMPERATURE

[Heme]

When speaking to a individual about sexing chickens or keets, the concept of Temperature Control came up.

Reptiles for example produce eggs that are dependent on a given temperature for female or male offspring. The same may be applied to our chickens.

To start with: freshly laid fertile eggs placed in a rotating egg device within the incubator set at 100 Degrees on the dot, may produce mostly females. At 90 degrees, the change may be more males.

Interesting concept? What is your though on the issue?

 

[Y N dottes]

very interesting. it would be cool to see the results of an experiment on this.
my only question is how would this work biologically? since 2 X chromosomes = female and XY = male, how does the temperature have an affect. possibly it affects the developing chromosomes

 

[Heme]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/a-drop-in-temperature-can-change-the-sex-of-chickens-1238516.html

I found this on line. Seems to relate to my theory.

 

[Y N dottes]

interesting, and I guess it makes sense. though it would be useful for egg producing factories, I don't think people who want to breed chickens could take advantage because only males would be produced from these "fake" females and other males.

 

[Heme]

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/Mark.w.ferguson/ may be able to answer additional questions.

The mass production farms are interested in Males as they tend to become larger and fatter than Females.
The larger and heavy weighted males bring in more money. Feed consumption is the same, thus; it makes sense to maximize the dollar spent on maintaining the flock and get a larger gross profit in the end.

Naturally, the opposite is expressed when raining Hens for Egg Production. If you Only raise layers and get rid of males; then the idea of maintaining the egg temperature and producing 90% or better FEMALS, then the Temperature regulation method could guarantee the sex desired. Remember: As mentioned, Both sexes eat about the same amount of feed, thus some farmers would prefer raining one sex over the other.

In closing: Small farms have the same desires. One male to 20-25 Females is all you need for approximately 24 months or more. That is if you want Fertile Eggs of course. Good going from Lauren in Dayton, TN.