Our Transgender Chicken
We have kept hens for eggs for at least ten years and up until recently they did what hens do best – they laid eggs, ate layer pellets, scratched for insects and worms, entertained us, grew old and eventually died, or occasionally got taken by a fox. All that changed last week however!
I was working in the barn when I heard a cockerel crowing in the paddock at the back of the barn. Now, we only have hens, and have only ever had hens (we always get rescue hens from Fresh Start For Hens) and as well as the 20 that live at our market garden site, we also have four hens that we’ve kept behind the barn for over a year. Then I hear it again, a definite cockerel crow.
I thought maybe a cockerel was on the pull and had wandered over from a neighbouring farm to try his luck with our girls. So, I went out to investigate and was gobsmacked to find it was one of our very own hens crowing! Not just crowing, I noticed its crop and wattle looked bigger and a much deeper red than usual.
After doing a bit of research it turns out that this is actually a thing – hens can become cockerels.
From The British Hen Welfare Trust
“It is a well-documented fact that female chickens (hens) can take on the characteristics and behaviour of male chickens and essentially turn into cockerels.
How is this possible?
Female chickens only have one functioning ovary, although they are born with two. The right ovary becomes dormant in every hen (it is not defined as an ovary or testes and is a non-functioning sex organ), the left ovary is responsible for egg production.
In some circumstances, where a health-related issue such as an ovarian cyst or adrenal gland disease is present, the left ovary shrinks. As the hen ends up without a left ovary, the dormant right sex organ starts to grow but may take the form of a male testes.
The resulting “he / she” will develop the large comb and wattles of a cockerel and may start to crow. However, she will not be a fully functioning cockerel, nor will she lay eggs”.
Apparently it happens to about 1 in 10,000 hens – who knew? Not us!! It also seems that the transition cannot work the other way around – that is, a cockerel cannot become a hen. According to Live Science “Sex reversals do, in fact, occur—although not very frequently,” states a 2000 report published by the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “To date, however, spontaneous sex reversal from male to female has not been reported.”
So, if you only have hens and suddenly hear a cock crowing, you haven’t gone mad it’s just one of your girls transitioning to a male.