The roosters vs hens issue.

[Farrier1987]

Hey Kathy, at what point is it determined if its a male or female? Time of fertilization? After a few days incubating? Please enlighten us. Thanks.

[Skinny rooster]

WWW, I also found that if I let a hen hatch end of August or September or October, most of the chicks are hens. I often wondered if it was a coincidence or was there something to it? I tried running my incubator at a lower temperature because I read a lower temperature should make more hens, but both times I tried, it just delayed hatching by one day and had no effect on sex.

[WLLady]

Sex is determined at fertilization-in mammals it is the male that decides the sex of the offspring through donation of the Y chromosome-if the y comes in the sperm the kid will be a male. if not, and the x comes in the sperm offspring will be female.

Birds are a tad different...they have Z and W (as opposed to X and Y). the hen is the one that bears Z and W, while the boys carry ZZ only, so can only donate Z via the sperm. so the hen actually determines the sex of the offspring by donating either the Z or the W in the egg. if the egg is Z and the rooster supplies Z in the sperm the offspring will be male. if the hen donates W in the egg, the offspring will be female.

temperature influence on sex at hatch is due to differences in the heat tolerance and cool tolerance in the developing chicks-male or female. Males seem to be more tolerant to temperature swings/extremes, and will be more likely to survive a drop or increase in temp that may kill the female chick. Spring hatching is commonly associated with cold nights and warm days, so the eggs are subjected to more changes in temps (especially under broody moms that get off to eat) and hence more males typically (or so research thinks). HOWEVER, this should not be a factor in the incubator, unless the incubator is also swinging with the ambient temperature (probably a factor with the styrofoam box incubators etc and less so with the industrial room sized incubators). so temperature doesn't actually sway the sex of the chick, but instead will select for hardier chicks (males) and kill off less hardy chicks.

[Skinny rooster]

Kathy there you go again with your education stuff when everyone knows that to get more hens, you just light a candle and walk backwards around the hen house five times while holding the eggs during a quarter moon. Get with the times please.

Now you tell me, no wonder the incubator thing didn't work, I may have even accidentally kill some hen chicks in the egg, d'oh!!!

[WLLady]

Hmmm voodoo never worked for me....thread with needle always goes around in circles whether its a rock or egg or whatever lol.