Fate ’s quicksilver fingers dealt our fowl farm a serial publication of inauspicious hand these past few years . We lost 90 percent of our show - quality Silkie flock to a persistent piranha . The wight ignored our bait trap and , from what we could order , continually jampack the Silkie coop ’s pop doorway until it lay in splinters .
And our trio of male Anconas , a heritage breed under observation by theLivestock Conservancy , annihilate the females of their flock with their randiness until only one young lady remained .
Time to Restock the Roost
We urgently needed to restock our mickle . Over the next span of week , we carefully hoard the cleanest egg laid by Olivia , our last Ancona girl and by Natalya , our last Silkie miss . Since we were hatching , we project that , since our Orpington girls were getting of age , why not incubate a few Orpington wench while we were at it ?
We loaded the duck’s egg ballock into our incubator . Then we gave Natalya her own three bollock plus three Orpington eggs to set . And we hop for the best .
One calendar month later , Natalya was the proud mommy to three adorable profane Orpington chicks . lamentably , the Silkie eggs had not been fecund . Natalya truly was the last of our strain .
At least she was no longer alone . She settled in good order into her role as Mama Hen , like for those three little peeps as if she herself had put down them . As for the incubator bunch , we were now the lofty “ parents ” of a half dozen Ancona ducklings .
We were thrilled ! Nine raw babe was by all odds a step in the right guidance .
Until it was n’t .
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Too Many Roos!
It took three months to verify that all three Orpington chicks were cockerel . Two — CJ and the one I had named Margie ( short for Margarine , to match her female parent , Butters — had start crowing . Or , rather , they sound like the squeaky toys cockerels tend to go like when just starting to triumph .
The third cockerel , TJ — or Tiny , as I nicknamed him — was impact by nanism . But he in spades displayed enough male characteristics to confirm he also was a boy .
This masculine trio brought our Orpington rooster amount to five . And that ’s three more than we postulate for a healthy residue between virile and distaff . But that was just the wind of the iceberg .
As the calendar month progressed , every unmarried duckling grow curly tail plumage . Yep … they were also all males .
So I shared the story of our gaggle of hombre with my social - medium followers and in my domestic fowl chemical group . And two response , both regarding egg form , descend up quite frequently :
The people who post these remarks intend well . And I apprise the spirit in which their advice was devote . I do feel , however , that it ’s important to cast some brightness level on what ’s myth and what ’s misconception when it comes to hatching eggs .
Here’s the Myth…
The old farmwives ’ story , believed by poultry raisers across the nation , is that the shape of the orchis indicates whether the resulting hatchling will be a male child or a girl .
Eggs that sharpen to a pointy tip will supposedly yield cockerel . And more rounded eggs will purportedly dream up pullets .
This belief is not intelligence to me . My nan shared this nugget of information with me when I was a little girl , assisting her with ballock compendium . Back then , I accepted everything Grandma said as verity , never doubt her sagacity .
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And Here’s the Reality
As an grownup chicken husbandman , I make love that passage through the oviduct can touch on the configuration of an bollock , disregardless of whether it ’s a boy egg or a fille ball .
You know how some human babies are hold with perfectly round heads and others emerge with a somewhat conical skull ? Eggs also can become torpedo shaped or elongated — or as round as golf game balls — during the 24 or so hours they spend traveling from the ovary to the vent .
Here ’s the Sojourner Truth . The shape of an egg has nothing to do with the grammatical gender of the potential biddy within and everything to do with the repose hen ’s reproductive build .
According to Dr. Richard M. Fulton , DVM , PhD , professor of domestic fowl science at Michigan State University and a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists , there ’s a 50:50 chance a chick will be male or distaff .
“ Egg shape does not determine the gender of a wench , ” noted Dr. Fulton .
But Wait! (A Possibility)
So , egg figure does not expose the sexuality of the chick inside . But there may be a way to slimly improve that 50 per centum fortune of hatching a female chick .
consort to an article publish in theAustralian Journal of Agricultural Research , cover eggs that were salt away at 40 degrees F and 70 percent humidity for up to a week prior to brooding lead in a high rate of frier hatching .
consort to the nonfigurative write by M.W. McDonald , there was no conflict in the ratio of male : female chicks hatched from eggs store at 60 degree F. The same held lawful for eggs stored at 80 degrees F.
Eggs stores at 40 degrees , however , result in a 54.6 percent frier rate versus the distinctive 50 percent ratio .
If you are see to increase your flock ’s manful : female ratio , this possibleness is definitely worth investigate ! I know that we ’ll be giving this a go next spring with the hope of adding some homegrown girls to our flocks .
