Sex-Change Chicken: Gertie the Hen Becomes Bertie the Cockerel

Under the right circumstances, a hen can actually
transform herself into a cock.
CREDIT: Gvision | Dreamstime

by Remy Melina
Date: 31 March 2011 Time: 03:25 PM ET

A British couple was surprised to witness their pet hen Gertie gradually transforming into a rooster. No, this is not an early April Fools' Day prank. Chickens really can undergo natural sex changes.

The first sign that something was afoot with Gertie was that she stopped laying eggs, her owners, Jim and Jeanette Howard of Huntingdon, England, told the local media. Next, she began strutting around their garden and crowing like a rooster. Over the next few weeks, Gertie put on weight and developed wattles beneath her chin, a feature normally exhibited only by males. She also grew dark brown plumage and a scarlet cockscomb atop her head, both male traits.

''I know it sounds ridiculous but I can assure you it's all true," Jim Howard told cambridge-news.co.uk. "People think it's a bit weird but apparently its one of those things that does happen."

"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."

That's because the mechanics of this biological phenomenon seem to work in only one direction. Normally, female chickens have just one functional ovary, on their left side. Although two sex organs are present during the embryonic stages of all birds, once a chicken's female genes kick in, it typically develops only the left ovary. The right gonad, which has yet to be defined as an ovary, testes, or both (called an ovotestis), typically remains dormant.

Certain medical conditions—such as an ovarian cyst, tumor or diseased adrenal gland—can cause a chicken's left ovary to regress. In the absence of a functional left ovary, the dormant right sex organ may begin to grow, according to Mike Hulet, an associate professor at Penn State University's department of poultry science.

"If the activated right gonad is an ovotestis or testes, it will begin secreting androgens," Hulet told Life's Little Mysteries. Androgens are the class of hormones that are largely responsible for male characteristics and are normally secreted by the testes. "The production of androgen would cause the hen to undergo behavioral changes and make it act more like a rooster."

The hen does not completely change into a rooster, however. This transition is limited to making the bird phenotypically male, meaning that although the hen will develop physical characteristics that will make her look male, she will remain genetically female. So while the hen will no longer lay eggs, she won't be fathering any offspring, either.

As for Gertie, the Howards have renamed the hen Bertie after her sex change. This article was provided by Life’s Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.com.

http://www.livescience.com/13514-sex-change-chicken-gertie-hen-bertie-cockerel.html

Man killed by fighting rooster

A fighting rooster found during a former bust in Bakersfield is seen in this
November 2010 file photo.

By Eyewitness News
Story Created: Feb 4, 2011 at 1:24 PM PST
Story Updated: Feb 4, 2011 at 2:39 PM PST

EARLIMART, Calif. — A Lamont man was killed earlier this week by a chicken.

Jose Luis Ochoa, 35, was stabbed by a knife attached to the leg of a fighting rooster, the Kern County coroner's office said Friday.

The accidental stab wound to Ochoa's calf, as determined by the autopsy, happened Sunday in Earlimart in Tulare County. He was taken to Delano Regional Medical Center, where he died about two hours later.

The coroner didn't specify what killed Ochoa, whether it was excessive bleeding, infection or something else.

Even though Kern County handled the autopsy, the Tulare County Sheriff's Department is handling the investigation. It's unknown if a cockfight was underway at the time of the accident.

http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/115315954.html

Burleson Couple Says Egg Is A Message From God

Dec 2, 2009
By Melissa Newton

BURLESON (CBS 11 / TXA 21) - There's a different type of story out of Burleson this holiday season. A couple in the city, 13 miles south of Fort Worth, believes God has given them a divine sign and it's a message spelled out in the most unusual of places.

Tracy and Pam Norrell are calling it a miracle, a gift laid before them on their small farm.

Tracy went to gather the eggs from the chicken coop Monday night, as he does every day. But this time one egg in particular caught his eye.

Unlike the others, this egg isn't smooth and a very noticeable cross is indented on the top.

The Norell's say the egg was laid 'straight from heaven' and is a message of encouragement that comes at the right time.

"This time of the year, we get so taken up with the presents and money and we forget about the reason," Pam explained. "I think he [God] was just telling us he is the reason for the season."

The Norell's haven't quite decided what they'll do with the egg yet. It goes without saying; the couple says eating the egg is not an option.

http://cbs11tv.com/religion/holy.egg.cross.2.1346581.html

(Submitted by Brian Chapman)

Burleson Couple Says Egg Is A Message From God

Dec 2, 2009
By Melissa Newton

BURLESON (CBS 11 / TXA 21) - There's a different type of story out of Burleson this holiday season. A couple in the city, 13 miles south of Fort Worth, believes God has given them a divine sign and it's a message spelled out in the most unusual of places.

Tracy and Pam Norrell are calling it a miracle, a gift laid before them on their small farm.

Tracy went to gather the eggs from the chicken coop Monday night, as he does every day. But this time one egg in particular caught his eye.

Unlike the others, this egg isn't smooth and a very noticeable cross is indented on the top.

The Norell's say the egg was laid 'straight from heaven' and is a message of encouragement that comes at the right time.

"This time of the year, we get so taken up with the presents and money and we forget about the reason," Pam explained. "I think he [God] was just telling us he is the reason for the season."

The Norell's haven't quite decided what they'll do with the egg yet. It goes without saying; the couple says eating the egg is not an option.

http://cbs11tv.com/religion/holy.egg.cross.2.1346581.html

(Submitted by Brian Chapman)

Giant egg mystery turns out to be joke

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CLENDENIN, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia mystery egg has turned out to be nothing more than a practical yolk.

Days after Sherman Farley found a giant egg while hunting in central West Virginia near Clendenin, another man has admitted planting it in the woods as a joke.

Herbert Herold says he got the ostrich egg from Benedict Haid Farm, about three miles from where Farley found it. Herold left it in the woods, hoping his brother Bill, who was hunting nearby, would find it.

But Farley found it first, and the 4.5-pound egg with a diameter of 18 inches had wildlife experts puzzled.

Farley’s wife, Rosie, has emptied and bleached the egg, which now sits on her kitchen counter.

———

Information from: Charleston Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.com

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2009/12/02/12009201-ap.html

See original story here.

Giant egg mystery turns out to be joke

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CLENDENIN, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia mystery egg has turned out to be nothing more than a practical yolk.

Days after Sherman Farley found a giant egg while hunting in central West Virginia near Clendenin, another man has admitted planting it in the woods as a joke.

Herbert Herold says he got the ostrich egg from Benedict Haid Farm, about three miles from where Farley found it. Herold left it in the woods, hoping his brother Bill, who was hunting nearby, would find it.

But Farley found it first, and the 4.5-pound egg with a diameter of 18 inches had wildlife experts puzzled.

Farley’s wife, Rosie, has emptied and bleached the egg, which now sits on her kitchen counter.

———

Information from: Charleston Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.com

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2009/12/02/12009201-ap.html

See original story here.

Such chic chickens

Click to enlarge

Metro, 20 November 2009, p37.

Such chic chickens

Click to enlarge

Metro, 20 November 2009, p37.

So which hen lays the golden eggs?

Metro Ireland, 22 October 2009, p6.

So which hen lays the golden eggs?

Metro Ireland, 22 October 2009, p6.

Plan to save Canadian chicken from extinction

October 4, 2009
By THE CANADIAN PRESS

MONTREAL - For several years, a small group of poultry enthusiasts has been pushing to save an authentic Canadian chicken from extinction.

They finally cooked up a plan to save the rare breed of barnyard fowl from oblivion - and it involves tossing thousands of them on the barbecue.

The Chantecler chicken, a bird once believed to be extinct, remains alive, but only around 2,000 of them are thought to be in existence and the majority of them are in Quebec.

The province now plans to ensure the breed's continued survival - by marketing it for the dinner plate.

Three organizations representing Quebec's egg and poultry producers recently signed an agreement to allow limited commercial production of the Chantecler.

"The only way to save the breed is to eat it," Fred Silversides, a poultry research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, said from his office in Agassiz, B.C.

Silversides mapped out the breeding plan that will preserve the Chantecler's gene pool and create business opportunities for producers.

"Any breed, of any species, if you're using it, then the population is strong and stable," he said.

In 1908, Brother Wilfrid, a monk from Oka, Que., began to carefully crossbreed several chicken races to create a Canuck clucker that could withstand this country's harsh winters.

By 1921, the Chantecler, designed to produce meat and eggs, was officially declared a new breed by the American Poultry Association. The organization lists it among 53 types of chickens from around the world in its large-breed class.

Chantecler producers say the hearty, white birds have lived up to their billing as the chicken best-suited to thrive in the Great White North.

The red, fleshy appendages on the Chantecler's head - also known as combs and wattles - are small, making them frostbite resistant.

Brother Wilfrid's birds soon became cultural symbols in Quebec, where they were designated as a heritage animal in 1999.

"It's a traditional race that at one time was part of our culture, of our heritage," said Andre Auclair, whose farm in St-Paulin, Que., is home to about five per cent of the world's Chantecler population - or about 100 chickens.

Auclair, director of Quebec's federation of producers of heritage breeds, estimates there are fewer than 1,500 Chanteclers across Canada, and only about 2,000 in the world.

"It's on the brink of extinction," he said in an interview from his home northeast of Montreal.

He said the Chantecler served as a good commercial bird until the poultry industry created today's "high performance hybrids," which grow fast and pump out eggs at a dizzying rate.

Eventually, Brother Wilfrid's slower-growing creatures were no longer commercially viable.

But Auclair predicts the Chantecler, which he says has more flavour than most broilers, will sell in a specialized market.

On Sept. 25, Quebec's poultry and egg producers agreed to take the necessary legal steps to allow 10 farms to raise Chantecler flocks, each comprising 150 hens and 15 roosters.

Greg Oakes, who has been raising Chanteclers at his farm near Guelph, Ont., for more than 25 years, hopes the deal will trigger a similar initiative in Ontario, as well as other provinces.

He said the fowl would make ideal commercial poultry, especially compared with the mass-produced kind that are ready for the supermarket less than two months after they hatch.

"They're not raised at such a speed that they're prone to these health issues - they're not going to keel over and have a heart attack," said Oakes, who also serves as chair of Rare Breeds Canada, a group that works to conserve scarce breeds of heritage farm animals.

"Because they haven't been in cages for, like 30 years, they haven't had their natural instincts bred out of them.

"They still know how to be a chicken."

Silversides was introduced to the Chantecler in the 1970s by one of his university professors while he studied in Saskatchewan.

"He thought that the Chantecler was extinct," Silversides recalled.

"He actually had a stuffed Chantecler - that he claimed to be the last Chantecler - in his office."

Some 20 years later, when Silversides himself was a professor at Universite Laval in Quebec City, he started hearing stories about the iconic chicken.

"And it really appeared that maybe they weren't extinct after all," he said.

They weren't.

For 80 years, about a dozen farmers around Quebec had been quietly raising tiny flocks of the birds, striving to preserve the bloodlines.

Over that time, Silversides said the breed went through 30 to 50 generations of natural selection, making the race even more distinct.

"These people are committed to the cultural aspects and the rare breed aspects," Silversides said.

"It is special - it's a Canadian thing, as well."

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2009/10/04/11291861-cp.html

Plan to save Canadian chicken from extinction

October 4, 2009
By THE CANADIAN PRESS

MONTREAL - For several years, a small group of poultry enthusiasts has been pushing to save an authentic Canadian chicken from extinction.

They finally cooked up a plan to save the rare breed of barnyard fowl from oblivion - and it involves tossing thousands of them on the barbecue.

The Chantecler chicken, a bird once believed to be extinct, remains alive, but only around 2,000 of them are thought to be in existence and the majority of them are in Quebec.

The province now plans to ensure the breed's continued survival - by marketing it for the dinner plate.

Three organizations representing Quebec's egg and poultry producers recently signed an agreement to allow limited commercial production of the Chantecler.

"The only way to save the breed is to eat it," Fred Silversides, a poultry research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, said from his office in Agassiz, B.C.

Silversides mapped out the breeding plan that will preserve the Chantecler's gene pool and create business opportunities for producers.

"Any breed, of any species, if you're using it, then the population is strong and stable," he said.

In 1908, Brother Wilfrid, a monk from Oka, Que., began to carefully crossbreed several chicken races to create a Canuck clucker that could withstand this country's harsh winters.

By 1921, the Chantecler, designed to produce meat and eggs, was officially declared a new breed by the American Poultry Association. The organization lists it among 53 types of chickens from around the world in its large-breed class.

Chantecler producers say the hearty, white birds have lived up to their billing as the chicken best-suited to thrive in the Great White North.

The red, fleshy appendages on the Chantecler's head - also known as combs and wattles - are small, making them frostbite resistant.

Brother Wilfrid's birds soon became cultural symbols in Quebec, where they were designated as a heritage animal in 1999.

"It's a traditional race that at one time was part of our culture, of our heritage," said Andre Auclair, whose farm in St-Paulin, Que., is home to about five per cent of the world's Chantecler population - or about 100 chickens.

Auclair, director of Quebec's federation of producers of heritage breeds, estimates there are fewer than 1,500 Chanteclers across Canada, and only about 2,000 in the world.

"It's on the brink of extinction," he said in an interview from his home northeast of Montreal.

He said the Chantecler served as a good commercial bird until the poultry industry created today's "high performance hybrids," which grow fast and pump out eggs at a dizzying rate.

Eventually, Brother Wilfrid's slower-growing creatures were no longer commercially viable.

But Auclair predicts the Chantecler, which he says has more flavour than most broilers, will sell in a specialized market.

On Sept. 25, Quebec's poultry and egg producers agreed to take the necessary legal steps to allow 10 farms to raise Chantecler flocks, each comprising 150 hens and 15 roosters.

Greg Oakes, who has been raising Chanteclers at his farm near Guelph, Ont., for more than 25 years, hopes the deal will trigger a similar initiative in Ontario, as well as other provinces.

He said the fowl would make ideal commercial poultry, especially compared with the mass-produced kind that are ready for the supermarket less than two months after they hatch.

"They're not raised at such a speed that they're prone to these health issues - they're not going to keel over and have a heart attack," said Oakes, who also serves as chair of Rare Breeds Canada, a group that works to conserve scarce breeds of heritage farm animals.

"Because they haven't been in cages for, like 30 years, they haven't had their natural instincts bred out of them.

"They still know how to be a chicken."

Silversides was introduced to the Chantecler in the 1970s by one of his university professors while he studied in Saskatchewan.

"He thought that the Chantecler was extinct," Silversides recalled.

"He actually had a stuffed Chantecler - that he claimed to be the last Chantecler - in his office."

Some 20 years later, when Silversides himself was a professor at Universite Laval in Quebec City, he started hearing stories about the iconic chicken.

"And it really appeared that maybe they weren't extinct after all," he said.

They weren't.

For 80 years, about a dozen farmers around Quebec had been quietly raising tiny flocks of the birds, striving to preserve the bloodlines.

Over that time, Silversides said the breed went through 30 to 50 generations of natural selection, making the race even more distinct.

"These people are committed to the cultural aspects and the rare breed aspects," Silversides said.

"It is special - it's a Canadian thing, as well."

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2009/10/04/11291861-cp.html