Have You Heard The One About A Sex Change Chicken!

Is SHE or isn’t HE This Is The Question!
It is a conundrum, the other day I distinctly heard my beautiful HEN Mop Top CROW, twice in fact. I know it was HER because I was outside and heard a strange crowing and looked towards the ‘crow’ and to my surprise only saw Mop Top, then, just as I was shaking my head thinking I was hearing things, SHE crowed again.

Now this supposed sex change poses a dilemma but also answers a few niggling questions I have been unable to answer until now. I have read about chickens turning into roosters but didn’t think it would ever happen here, especially as Mop Top is STILL laying eggs!

Last year she successfully raised two lots of chicks and I was looking forward to her doing the same this year. We have a new chicken inclosure and Mop Top appeared to go broody almost immediately after molting, or so I thought….

We have only one rooster at present, and the girls really love him, he is kind, gentle and protective of them and they really respond to this, and believe me, when I say, we have had some shocking roosters!!

So, I expected things to settle down, ‘Fu Man Chu’ was in charge and the enclosure was working well for me and the chickens. I could find the eggs and the girls worked on my compost during the day, perfect, but as they say don’t count your chickens until they have hatched..

Three weeks to the day after Mop Top went broody, I was looking for signs of chicks, as she had left the nest to feed, which, when I think back, was a bit strange as she is always so diligent when her chicks are just born.

On investigation, I found the nest had been destroyed and the eggs were rotten and broken. Then, suddenly, as, I was scratching my head in puzzlement, all hell broke loose, Fu Man Chu was attacking Mop Top and I thought he was going to kill her, so vicious was his attack.

We quickly saved her from his clutches and made her a house away from the coop in another part of the paddock, twice more the attacks happened, each time Fu had escaped out of the large enclosure. We were stumped as to what the problem was, he is SO gentle with all the other hens.

Now I think we know!!

What The Experts Say!
Research into the phenomenon of a hen changing ‘sex’ revealed it is possible for a hen to become ‘rooster like’, meaning they adopt rooster like characteristics:

• Physically changing to have a larger body
• Acquiring ‘male’ feathering, large wattles and an upright comb
• Some will even ‘crow’

They named this manifestation ‘spontaneous reversal’ and in reality a hen remains a hen sexually speaking, but her external appearance is of a rooster. Hens have 2 ovaries, but only one is productive, it’s the left that is functional, and the right is fully formed but not functional.

What happens in ‘spontaneous reversal’ is that the left functional ovary is damaged by disease, or a cyst or a tumor. This damage activates the right ovary, which can sometimes contains the genetic characteristics of male testes instead of the female ovary and in some cases contains both traits.

An active right ovary is called ‘ovotestis’ and it will start producing hormones to the corresponding sex orientation. And so, this is how your hen becomes a rooster!!

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