The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Housing, Health & Hatching

Silvers infertility dilemma...

<< < (2/3) > >>

Fyremare:
Thanks Jean and Russ,
Jean, yes they are from the same hatch. I don't know how long they were bred together.
I have never seen them be aggressive with each other. I looked them over closer in the last few days. One Silver and one Blue are showing more mounting wear than their color mates. Before I penned them they hung out together even with the other rooster being top roo. One Silver hen was not laying when I penned them the beginning of March. The other had barely begun.
There are basically no breeders of Silvers closer than PA and even those are originally from the same breeder as mine.
Russ, I don't have the capacity to buy feed in bulk or to keep too many multiple roosters. I love the color and it is my first intentional breeding. I am new and learning. Also most of my birds before this were hen raised, am on my maiden voyage with an incubator. Friends hatched for me until someone let me borrow theirs for a hatch.
If it doesn't start to work out better, then enjoying the birds I do have will be the priority. The whole flock ran together before March 2nd. The boys had their own girls and worked at their guarding job together. No idea if they will ever do that again.
Thanks for your ideas and suggestions!
Chris

Fyremare:
So the update is still no Silver/Silver chicks, the breeding pen is now integrated back into the flock and I am trying to enjoy my chickens!

DeWayne Edgin:
I did a google search on this same type of thing and i found some neat stuff on Backyard chickens web site. I will see if i can find it again and copy it to here for everyone to see. I don't know if i believe it all so you guys can give your opinions on it.

DeWayne Edgin:
Fertilization in any animal depends on production of eggs from the female and sperm from the male. A problem with either sperm or egg production can decrease fertility. The rooster's reproductive system is simple when compared to humans or other mammals. The rooster does not have a prostate gland or any of the accessory reproductive glands. Like all other animals, chicken sperm carry the genetic material from the rooster and are produced within the testes. The rooster has two very large testicles within the abdominal cavity on each side of the backbone. After sperm leave the testes, they enter the epididymis, where they gain the ability to swim. Next, the sperm enter the vas deferens, where they are stored until the rooster mates with a hen.

Sperm formation takes about 15 days. The rooster's semen contains around 5 billion sperm per cc, about 40 times as much as that of a human. Once a rooster is mature and if he is maintained properly, he will manufacture about 35,000 sperm every second of his life. However, just like the males of many animal species, the fertilizing potential of roosters varies, even within a flock. For example, some roosters are extremely fertile and create a maximum number of quality sperm; other roosters are subfertile and do not make enough good sperm. This variation in rooster quality is caused by management, environment, nutrition, and genetics.

The hen does not produce nearly as many eggs as the rooster produces sperm, but during her 40 weeks of production, the broiler breeder hen lays about 180 eggs. Egg formation requires about 25 hours. Since egg formation requires more than 24 hours, even the best hens cannot lay an egg every day in succession throughout their productive life. As is the case with roosters, some hens are more productive than others, and management has a major impact on variability among hens.
The hen's reproductive system can be divided into two major components: the ovary and the oviduct. The ovary produces the egg yolk. The oviduct adds the white, shell membranes, and shell to the yolk to complete egg formation.

The hen has only one ovary, which is on the left side of her abdomen. The ovary has several thousand ova (egg yolks) in different stages of development and looks like a bunch of grapes. Very immature yolks contain only genetic material from the hen, and as the yolks grow to around 1 mm in diameter, they become white. If the hen is managed properly, many of these developing egg yolks will mature in about 19 days into large, 35 mm, yellow yolks. As the egg yolk develops it will get water, sugars, fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals from the hen's blood. These are all necessary for the embryo to develop. The egg yolk is surrounded by the perivitelline membrane. This keeps all of these nutrients in a ball-shaped package. One particularly visible region of the perivitelline membrane is the germinal disc. The germinal disc is a small white dot about half the size of a pencil eraser on the surface of the yellow egg yolk. Fertilization takes place here, and embryonic development begins.

When the egg yolk is mature, it leaves the ovary, and within 20 minutes it is captured by the infundibulum, the first part of the oviduct. Here fertilization takes place. Following mating, sperm enter the hen's oviduct and are stored within sperm storage glands. Only sperm that can swim will enter these sperm storage sites. These glands can store more than half a million sperm. Sperm can remain alive in these glands and fertilize eggs for up to 3 weeks.A hen will have maximum fertility for only about 3 to 4 days after one mating. For this reason, the male-to-female ratio in a flock must be enough to ensure mating of every hen every 3 days or so. Sperm do not break through the eggshell. Instead they travel up the oviduct to the infundibulum to join with the egg yolk.

The sperm bind to the perivitelline membrane and make a hole as they enter the egg. Hundreds of sperm may enter the yolk. As a matter of fact, the more sperm that enter the yolk, the more likely the egg will be fertilized. Around 30 sperm must enter the egg near the germinal disc to insure a 95 percent chance of fertilization. While it is true that only one sperm is necessary to fertilize an egg, the probability of an egg's being fertilized by only one sperm's reaching and penetrating it is very low.

After about 15 minutes, the yolk leaves the infundibulum (fertilized or not) and receives the egg white, shell membranes, and shell over the next several hours from the magnum, isthmus, and uterus sections of the oviduct. When the hen lays a fertilized egg, the chick embryo has already developed for about 25 hours into approximately 20,000 embryonic cells and is a live, breathing organism. If this fertilized egg is handled properly before and during incubation, a healthy baby chick is the result.

DeWayne Edgin:
Here is another article that goes along with what Jean was talking about. The hen has to like her mate some what.  Hens play their part
However, the sex life of hens is just as sophisticated as the roosters’. Since the roosters are bigger and stronger, the hens are not able to reject a mating demand. This does however not mean that hens do not have their favorite mating partners. Dominant roosters are those which have the largest combs and have the highest status in the chicken flock, which makes them also more attractive to the hens. Dominant roosters have often better genes than subdominant, something that hens are aware of and wish therefore to lay the dominant roosters eggs. But when the dominant roosters are absent, the subdominant roosters take the opportunity to mate with the unwilling hens. To prevent the hen from laying the unwanted eggs, they spurt out the inseminated sperm and therefore make the mating useless. This behavior is not only used towards subdominant roosters but also against related cocks. If a hen is inseminated both by a brother and a rooster which is not related to her, she uses less sperm from the related cock’s sperm in order to avoid inbreeding. The research can however not tell how the hen is able to recognize which roosters are related to her. Hanne Løvlie is now carrying out a research to find out whether this behavior is a physiological mechanism occurring inside the female, or if the hen actually can recognize and in turn choose to eject the ejaculate from brothers.

Roosters are able to control the amount of sperm ejaculated during mating. This means that they are able to decrease hens’ promiscuity without having to waste valuable semen. Cocks can decide which hen to inseminate through studying the comb of the hen. A large and red comb is an indication that the hen is in good physical shape and will produce strong and healthy offspring. But hens are also able to tell if the interested rooster is of good breed, if this is not the case the hen will squirt out the rooster’s sperm. This is done in order to increase the chances of laying the eggs of a more desired rooster. As opposed to human beings and other primates, hens do not get orgasms and therefore they’re not able to enjoy the sexual act. This means that the behavior of fake mating which roosters perform is only in order to get granted access to more hens and not for personal sexual pleasure.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page