Homestead mailing list

[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

We were able to get the jungle under control this past weekend, but we
crossed paths with 2 additional snakes..that makes 3 snakes in two
days...one King snake and two red rat snakes.  I was down at my friends
house this morning and she showed me a single winding track through the
grass-the track was muddy, the grass was green, so it was easy to see.
The track was several inches wide.  The only thing that could be in
these parts is a big rattlesnake, or a monster king snake that just ate
the monster rattlesnake<g>(like the one we saw in SC).  This track
definitely has a Wow Factor associated with it.  The snakes are
definitely out and about.

We have a few more roosters to dispatch, but in doing that, we will end
the great 2008-2009 hatching project to replace chickens lost to
predators.  I started with 6 birds, and now have 6+ roos that need to be
dispatched, 30 hens and 1 rooster in the main coop, and one poor
battered hen in the chicken tractor.  There are 2 or 3 birds in the 30
that might be roosters, too, but right now they are just androgenous
pullets.<g>  I have a beautiful partridge rock looking roo that I am
thinking of keeping.  He would be part Partridge Rock(mother) and Blue
Laced Red Wyandotte(father).  Currently, I have a RIR/BLRW roo.  I've
forgotten the number of hens a rooster can service, but I think t

I'm quite amazed at the percentage of pullets I hatched vs.
roosters/cockerels.  I think I've maybe a dozen+ roosters in all the
birds I've hatched since Thanksgiving and with close to 70 total birds,
that's rather amazing.  Even at 15/75-that's only 20% roosters, and I
believe the actual percentage is closer to 17%.  It's got me wondering
about evolution and the role temperature plays in determination of sex
and embryo development.
I know that with some reptiles, notably crocodilians(alligators, crocs,
caimans,and gavial), temperature of the eggs during incubation does
influence gender. I believe that it must be true with some birds,
perhaps in my case, the chicken eggs I hatched.  The incubator temps
were kind of high, 100-101F.  In some reptiles, higher temps can switch
off male expression genes and create females.  The embryo starts off as
a male, but when the egg is exposed to higher temperatures, the embryo
undergoes a gender switch and the hatchling becomes female.  In
addition, some animals that appear female are actually male and visa
versa, i.e. their sex is ambiguous;they are intersexed.  Could this have
happened with my chickens?  I think it is possible.  Birds are descended
from reptiles and the sex change thing is related to a changing
environment.  Perhaps during warmer eons, more females are produced to
expand the population, but during colder eons, the embryos remain
predominantly male.  The planet is currently experiencing a warming
trend as we all know....is it Nature's Way-the ultimate survival
technique-the Master's Plan- to turn males into females to expand the
population while it is warm and to prepare for the cold eon to come?
Are my ambiguous, androgenous looking pullets really male?

Bev, who wrote more on this topic on her blog, but this is enough for
Homestead

--
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public
debt  should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered
and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed
lest Rome become bankrupt.  People must again learn to work, instead of
living on public assistance."

--Cicero, 55 BC
http://erthnsky.blogspot.com/