# Why so many boys???



## Bobuki (Sep 26, 2013)

Are pigeons like alligators where the temperature they're incubated at determines the sex of the offspring?
That's the only thing I can think of that has given me 98% boys this year! What is going on? LOL.

Genetically speaking, how is it I've gotten such a propensity to hatch boys?
Is there something I can add to the diet of the hens to make their bodies more susceptible to girl swimmers?
There's a filly formula in horses... Why not pigeons? LOL.


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## Ross Howard (Nov 26, 2009)

Just lucky I guess.


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## Henk69 (Feb 25, 2010)

There are no girl swimmers. All sperm cells have a Z chromosome.
And no, temperature shouldn't matter.

How is your hatch rate? If it is low, your male embryos may be stronger.
In chickens male embryos can cope better with high incubation temperature.
But an embryo shouldn't turn...


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## Bobuki (Sep 26, 2013)

Interesting.
Hatch rate is up there. I'm having trouble with my short faced birds, but all the boys are coming from rates up in the 90s.

So, no secret hen recipe, huh?
Well, baby bokhara is a hen, so that was the important one!


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## Woody Pigeon (Feb 3, 2013)

IVF clinic for pigeon hen unable to produce female offspring?

I don't believe egg temperature has anything to do with it


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

How many babies have you bred?

I've had some hens that so far has only given me daughters, while she herself has only sisters and half sister. I've thought it might be genetic, but proving it would be hard, since I cannot get any sons!

I also have a cock / hen pair that gave me 9 sons and 1 daughters in 2 years. 100% hatch rate. It's rare, but it's also the luck of the draw, it's like those large families who keep trying for a daughter but end up with 8 sons ;-) Rare, but not unheard of.

You can even calculate the probability of such a thing happening to you... Look up a binomial calculator.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

How many YBs have you bred so far and how old are they now? Are there any sex-linked matings going on that make you positive of their gender?


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## Bobuki (Sep 26, 2013)

I've got about thirty yb and call them boys when they do the strutting that males do.
If they don't strut at 6 months I declare hen. I've only had two hens out of 30ish babies.
Sadly, I don't know enough about sex linked colors to determine anything other than the almonds I get from my almond hen are boys (which I have two in the nest right now)LOL.
This isn't doing much for getting my own bloodlines going


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## spence (Dec 15, 2011)

My geese got stricken with a mycoplasma that sterilized some females and seemed to be harder on female embryos. I only hatched 9 goslings that year and all of them were ganders. I don't know if your pigeons might have something similar or not. Antibiotics specific to control mycoplasms were needed to reverse the problem. Do a lot of the eggs that might be female not hatch or are clear? I think you said you got 90% hatch rate earlier though. My pigeons seemed to have a lopsided sex ratio with more males so I started throwing some of the eggs that were longer shaped hoping that would help. In ducks and geese this helps to hatch more females (not hatching the longer shaped eggs).


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