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A friend of mine have a small hobbie farm. they have chickens but did not have any roosters. but now it seems one of the chickens have changed it's sex ? and is now a rooster. My friends said that if there is no roosters one (the one of the chickens that want to rule the roost) then one will have a sex change and turn into a rooster. Is this true ?

2006-07-17 17:15:34 · 19 answers · asked by Mrs Magoo 4 in Pets Other - Pets

19 answers

Actually, I do remember hearing of a case many years ago in Ripley's "Believe It Or Not" where a hen turned into a rooster. For a more recent case, see this article "Freaky the Hen Changes Sex into a Rooster" published on the 19th of April 2006 in the Online Evening Times (UK):
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/hi/news/5051230.html

Whether or not such a bird would be able to fertilize eggs is a question -- In the case of Freaky, the article says "she does not have the male attributes to become a father." So more likely it is just a hormonal change. (As far as I know, it does NOT happen just because there are no roosters in a flock.)

Although I have never had a hen actually turn into a rooster, I have had several older hens who stopped laying and grew spurs like a rooster. Perhaps this is a natural sign of chicken menopause. It might be more common than we think, except that most chickens don't get to live that long. Because we are ovo-lacto vegetarians who don't slaughter our birds, they live to 8-12 years old, so we sometimes see these odd changes. .

2006-07-17 17:43:53 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 3 0

The female chicken doesnt technically turn into a male, but because of the absence of a rooster, some hens start to take on the lead role and act more like roosters, this behaviour causes them to start looking like roosters because to be in the leadership role the rooster has to be tough and "rule the roost", to be this way it is only natural that they would start producing more male hormones which stimulates thier bodies to exaggerate the female traits into male ones. It would be the equivalent of a human woman taking mens hormones to become more manly in appearance, they dont become men but they look more like them. This is how it works with a hen, becoming more masculine because of excess of male growth hormones. I have seen it happen before with my parents chickens and I found out that thid is the reason after a little research

2006-07-17 23:17:40 · answer #2 · answered by Kelly + Eternal Universal Energy 7 · 0 0

A chicken cannot change sex. A chicken can be a male or a female. A rooster is a male chicken. A hen is a female chicken. They are all chickens.

2006-07-17 17:30:47 · answer #3 · answered by tigereyes1989 2 · 0 0

No, it is impossible for a chicken to turn into a rooster. It cannot change its sex. But, there is one animal that is a male when its young, but it becomes a female when it become older.

2006-07-17 17:22:46 · answer #4 · answered by halokiller231 3 · 0 0

I feel like if your friend has the tendency to joke this is one of his jokes and that he went out and bought a rooster. I am almost positive that such behavior is only present in small microorganisms or other such organisms (like worms) whose sex is a little less determined already. However, with large organisms such as chickens I am almost positive that the organs that they have at birth are all that they are capable of using. Interesting story, though, really baffled me for a bit!

2006-07-17 17:22:23 · answer #5 · answered by ? 4 · 0 0

This is new to me. don't know anything about chickens, but thought they would mature into roosters or hens based on the sex they were born as.

2006-07-17 17:20:47 · answer #6 · answered by ValleyViolet 6 · 0 0

chickens are roosters and hens
hens are the female ones
roosters are the male ones
right??

2006-07-17 17:20:54 · answer #7 · answered by hillbilly271 3 · 0 0

Not true.

P.S. All roosters are chickens. Hens are the girls!

2006-07-17 17:19:54 · answer #8 · answered by Lucybelle 2 · 0 0

Althought that is true for many frogs and some types of fish, it's not true of chickens or any other known mammel.

2006-07-17 17:20:20 · answer #9 · answered by David T 4 · 0 0

I've only heard of it happening to a special kind of lizards (and even then, it's not a sex change). So, no, I think your friend's just messing with you.

2006-07-17 17:19:58 · answer #10 · answered by whatever_9123 1 · 0 0

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