The tiny serama; a Hatching adventure

[2ndTink]

Ok, I'm going to stir the genetic egg pot here, but I've heard that gender is determined by environmental temperatures. I am not sure why this may be, and I may be confused with some wild bird species. But warmer environments, where eggs are waiting to be incubated, more males are produced. In colder environments, more females are produced. This may be nature's way of controlling the species depending on what the environment can offer the offspring. I can't be sure.

So we should do winter hatches for our layer breeds and summer hatches for meat breeds

 

[tlcmurphy]

It’s definitely true for reptiles, turtles and alligators for examples. I’ve never heard of that for birds though.

 

[TwoCrows]

So we should do winter hatches for our layer breeds and summer hatches for meat breeds

Its worth an experiment!

 

[TwoCrows]

It’s definitely true for reptiles, turtles and alligators for examples. I’ve never heard of that for birds though.

Time for a hatching egg-spirement!

 

[fluffycrow]

I've heard people theorising that temperature has something to do with it, but many others (many on this very site) have said it's not true. I'm not sure

My small sample size hasn't given results that point towards one way or another. My hatch during a heat wace last year was predominantly pullets. A broody hatch in November was mostly cockerels. The hatch for this thread had predominantly pullets as well

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

Ok, I'm going to stir the genetic egg pot here, but I've heard that gender is determined by environmental temperatures. I am not sure why this may be, and I may be confused with some wild bird species. But warmer environments, where eggs are waiting to be incubated, more males are produced. In colder environments, more females are produced. This may be nature's way of controlling the species depending on what the environment can offer the offspring. I can't be sure.

This is halfway true! Because of how gender is decided right after the fertilization of the egg, the gender cannot changed, so the temperature does not actually change their gender. The temperature only kills off more of the females/males (depending on the temperature) because female and male embyros have different resistances to temperature. If you make your incubator colder, more females will hatch because you are killing off the male embyros. Sad but true, so I have never experimented with it. I would rather the chick die normally in the egg than me make it die, I would feel horrible doing that.

 

[tlcmurphy]

This is halfway true! Because of how gender is decided right after the fertilization of the egg, the gender cannot changed, so the temperature does not actually change their gender. The temperature only kills off more of the females/males (depending on the temperature) because female and male embyros have different resistances to temperature. If you make your incubator colder, more females will hatch because you are killing off the male embyros. Sad but true, so I have never experimented with it. I would rather the chick die normally in the egg than me make it die, I would feel horrible doing that.

I feel that if that were true everyone would do it. Especially hatcheries.

 

[TwoCrows]

This is halfway true! Because of how gender is decided right after the fertilization of the egg, the gender cannot changed, so the temperature does not actually change their gender. The temperature only kills off more of the females/males (depending on the temperature) because female and male embyros have different resistances to temperature. If you make your incubator colder, more females will hatch because you are killing off the male embyros. Sad but true, so I have never experimented with it. I would rather the chick die normally in the egg than me make it die, I would feel horrible doing that.

This is probably what I read a while back, this does make sense. Females in many species are more adapted to cold for survival and raising young than males.

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

This is probably what I read a while back, this does make sense. Females in many species are more adapted to cold for survival and raising young than males.

Yes! People get it confused a lot and think that it means the temperature changes the gender. No, it just kills off one of the genders and leaves the rest.

 

[fluffycrow]

This is a very interesting topic. Time to do some research of my own, it seems. That's what I love BYC; there can be great, informative discussions on here.



In the meantime, @pipdzipdnreadytogo what do you think about this topic? Does a certain temperature really kill off one gender?