Sex of the hatch

[hendricks115]

I've searched the internet and haven't found any real answers.

The past two years we've incubated a batch of our hens eggs and seem to have a very large rooster hatch. Last spring we hatched 42 eggs and 36 turned out to be roosters. Great for my freezer, not for increasing my flock. This year we set chicken eggs, slate blue turkey eggs and muscovey duck eggs. The only two ducks to hatch were both males, we have a larger than normal number of toms and it's looking again like our chicken hatch was heavily male.

So is it just totally random that we have such a high male hatch every year or is there something we can do to effect this?

 

[Firekin1]

You are having the same luck many of us have been having...tis the time of the roo I guess. That being said, in humans it's the male sperm that determines the sex of a child, in chickens, it's actually the hen and has nothing to do with the roo.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

I've searched the internet and haven't found any real answers.

The past two years we've incubated a batch of our hens eggs and seem to have a very large rooster hatch. Last spring we hatched 42 eggs and 36 turned out to be roosters. Great for my freezer, not for increasing my flock. This year we set chicken eggs, slate blue turkey eggs and muscovey duck eggs. The only two ducks to hatch were both males, we have a larger than normal number of toms and it's looking again like our chicken hatch was heavily male.

So is it just totally random that we have such a high male hatch every year or is there something we can do to effect this?

That depends on which of the old wives' tales you want to subscribe to - there are all sorts of things that are claimed to effect gender of chicks from egg shape, temperature, etc -- though if any of them were actually true you would see the commercial hatcheries producing a lot more pullet chicks since that is what they have demand for.

 

[AmericanMom]

You are having the same luck many of us have been having...tis the time of the roo I guess. That being said, in humans it's the male sperm that determines the sex of a child, in chickens, it's actually the hen and has nothing to do with the roo.

You know, I heard this the other day and it got me thinking.. I wonder if a hen instinctively knows something.. Some of us keep large flocks, I have two resident roosters with a few cockerels sprinkled here and there waiting for freezer camp, I wonder if the hens body adjust for the many hens and not so many roosters?

Just a thought.

 

[Firekin1]

You know, I heard this the other day and it got me thinking.. I wonder if a hen instinctively knows something.. Some of us keep large flocks, I have two resident roosters with a few cockerels sprinkled here and there waiting for freezer camp, I wonder if the hens body adjust for the many hens and not so many roosters?

Just a thought.

I wouldn't put it past anything to be honest. It is the hens hormones I believe that determines sex, so it could very well be possible. I'd have to look into that now because I'm curious if there's been any studies on it...lol

 

[hendricks115]

Most of our original batch of hens have passed, only 4 left. So maybe next year our hatch won't be so male heavy. We bought some new varieties this year to add to our stock. Our turkey hatch went surprisingly well (we were told that slate blues were difficult to hatch), so I'm going to be thinning out the flock.