The Legbar Thread!

[KPenley]

Heehee...I need one of those strings! I meant waiting longer as in incubating 3 days after being laid versus 7 days. I'm very interested in testing Curtis' cockeral with more mature hen theory.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

And then again, there's this:

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/poultrynews/25257/changing-the-sex-ratio-in-chicken

Although even after reading the above, I'm not sure how they did it.

Well THAT article was vague and nearly useless! What a teaser!

 

[dretd]

Well THAT article was vague and nearly useless!  What a teaser!

Try this one, far more interesting with implications IMHO: http://www.wattagnet.com/White_leghorn_chicken_sex_ratio_manipulated_with_hormones.html

In a nutshell, the researchers administered corticosterone ( a hormone produced by stress -- either physiolocical or psychological ) to chickens and found that increased levels skewed the hatches to boys.

My thoughts: one explanation would be if there are not enough Roos, hens are stressed because they are fearful of predators. This increased hormone causes them to lay more male eggs therefore more Roos are hatched and those boys will act as a buffer between the predators and the hens.

If this article is valid and the reverse is true ( which may not be the case), having worry-free hens will increase the female chicks or at least keep the ratio at 50/50 instead of 83% roo: 17%pullets that this paper reported.

Last year I hatched 4 boys from 4 eggs that hatched from my flock. My rooster was somewhat of a jerk and I wonder if he WAS the stress to the hens that resulted in the 100% boys. Or I just have really bad luck!

Moral: keep your hens happy! ( I rehomed the roo as he was an awesome flock guardian)

 

[dretd]

And then again, there's this:

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/poultrynews/25257/changing-the-sex-ratio-in-chicken

Although even after reading the above, I'm not sure how they did it.

Thanks for the link. This article was a recap of a study and was therefore relatively content-free. You don't how how they did anything because they didn't say anything about that. They didn't even provide a link to the original study that I saw.

The article simply reported that researchers are actively studying the sex ratios in chickens and they found you can use PCR ( a common scientific technique) to determine sex of the proto-chick when the egg is laid instead of having to incubate it and wait until it develops. It's a big breakthrough because it cuts down on the costs of these types of studies by a lot.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Try this one, far more interesting with implications IMHO: http://www.wattagnet.com/White_leghorn_chicken_sex_ratio_manipulated_with_hormones.html

In a nutshell, the researchers administered corticosterone ( a hormone produced by stress -- either physiolocical or psychological ) to chickens and found that increased levels skewed the hatches to boys.

My thoughts: one explanation would be if there are not enough Roos, hens are stressed because they are fearful of predators. This increased hormone causes them to lay more male eggs therefore more Roos are hatched and those boys will act as a buffer between the predators and the hens.

If this article is valid and the reverse is true ( which may not be the case), having worry-free hens will increase the female chicks or at least keep the ratio at 50/50 instead of 83% roo: 17%pullets that this paper reported.

Last year I hatched 4 boys from 4 eggs that hatched from my flock. My rooster was somewhat of a jerk and I wonder if he WAS the stress to the hens that resulted in the 100% boys. Or I just have really bad luck!

Moral: keep your hens happy! ( I rehomed the roo as he was an awesome flock guardian)

LOL.

The only research I have seen was a study exposing incubating eggs to different levels of ultrasound waves for the duration of incubation. They also had a much higher incidence of male hatches. The conclusion was that male embryos seem to be more hardy than females. It was quite a large scale study- I think there were 4 hatches of several hundred eggs each, and each batch got a different level of ultrasound, and one control group. Too bad they can't figure out a way to influence higher female hatches!

 

[dretd]

LOL.

The only research I have seen was a study exposing incubating eggs to different levels of ultrasound waves for the duration of incubation. They also had a much higher incidence of male hatches. The conclusion was that male embryos seem to be more hardy than females. It was quite a large scale study- I think there were 4 hatches of several hundred eggs each, and each batch got a different level of ultrasound, and one control group. Too bad they can't figure out a way to influence higher female hatches!

I am thinking we need to figure a way to pamper the hens so they are very happy:

The Garden of Eden vs The Garden of Eatin'...

 

[ChicKat]

I am thinking we need to figure a way to pamper the hens so they are very happy:

The Garden of Eden vs The Garden of Eatin'...

I'm all for happy hens!!

 

[Sphinx]

That study is really interesting! It seems like when I've hatched eggs from my yard, I tend to have a higher hen ratio. My boys are fairly sweet, and there's 3 roosters for 12ish hens. It'd be nice to find a hormone free, kind way to influence hatching so that there were more hens.


I tried to skim the thread since I last posted (a loooong time ago), and forgive me if I've missed it, but has anyone tried crossing legbars with anything and gotten an interesting result? I was hoping my legbar rooster was the dominant roo, but as I've watched more and more, I really don't think he gets any action, and that my french black copper marans roo gets all the ladies. A friend hatched some of my eggs, and they all popped out black like the marans.

So, I hatched 7 of my cream legbar hens eggs. All seven hatched, and all came out black. But, two of them had a white spot on the head that reminded me quite a bit of the white spot on a cockerel legbar egg. They also both had feathered legs, and none of the others did.

At almost 6 weeks old, there's a HUGE difference between the two spotted babies and the 5 solid babies. Here's a picture of one of each to see the difference.




I'm wondering if I've hit on another type of sex link. Anyone else have a similar experience?

 

[1muttsfan]

For a sex link with a CL (barred, gold r/r) roo, you would need to cross with a silver (S) female , then you would have a red sex-link cross not based on barring. To get a barred-base sex link, you cross a non-barred male with a barred female - as in black sex-links.

Barred black chicks have creamy head spots as part of their chick down, and both sexes have them, although they tend to be smaller in females.

 

[Sphinx]

For a sex link with a CL (barred, gold r/r) roo, you would need to cross with a silver (S) female , then you would have a red sex-link cross not based on barring. To get a barred-base sex link, you cross a non-barred male with a barred female - as in black sex-links.

Barred black chicks have creamy head spots as part of their chick down, and both sexes have them, although they tend to be smaller in females.

So you think this was just a funny coincidence? I know that the mother is a legbar, and I know that the father was a french black copper marans. I don't have any barred chickens at all, unless you count the barred ancestors in my legbar. She doesn't look at all like a silver, I don't think. I think she's a regular cream legbar. But, I am definitely not the expert that you all are.