Something I'm doing wrong, or just dumb, bad luck. It seems like most of my hatches, I end up with a lot more males than females: Rouen Ducks hatched May 30-31 -- 5 total, 3 males, 2 hens Turkeys, hatched May 30-31 -- 6 total, I think it's going to be 4 males and 2 hens, not sure yet though. Button Quail hatched July 5-6 -- 7 total, 5 males, 2 hens. Coturnix Quail hatched July 30-31, 8 total, 5 males, 3 hens. Button Quail hatched August 2-3-4, 7 total, 5 males 2 hens (pretty sure, one is iffy due to coloration but I think its a rooster). Coturnix Quail hatched August 26-27, 30 total, can't tell yet. I am anxious to see what this ratio turns out like. Is there something about male eggs that make them tougher/easier to incubate than female eggs, resulting in more males hatching? I want MORE hens and fewer males, since I'm mostly after eggs. Now, the only major success in getting hens was in my Isa Browns -- 6 hens, 0 roosters. Of course, I BOUGHT those from the feed store!
Because you are lucky... Really if you flipped a coin that many times (7 or 8) you would not often get 50/50 or better. because birds males are ZZ and females are ZW the females have a higher chance of having a bad copy of the information that is carried on the gene. This could make female fetus slightly more fragile. But you didn't mention a lot of unhatched eggs -
Quote:Actually, I did have pretty poor hatch rates: I started with about 24 duck eggs, but they had been held for up to a month, and some had been exposed to freezing outdoor temps, so not surprised with bad numbers there. All of the rest were shipped eggs, and I had between 25% and 50% hatch rates, although most of the batches were in the 25% to 30% range. So yes, there were a lot of bad eggs that didn't hatch.
