Behold, friends! A new blog series, all about common misconceptions about farmers, farming, and other related things. written by the Farmer’s three youngest children under pseudonyms. Brownie points to anybody who can guess the real identity behind the writers!
The first (very common) misconception is that hens need roosters to lay eggs.
Not true, y’all. If we think about life (as we know it) in the larger scheme of things, it becomes blatantly obvious that every female organism ovulates without being sexually active, and chickens aren’t the exception. Hens (female chickens) will lay eggs even if there isn’t a rooster hanging around the coop.
So what happens if a rooster is with the egg-laying hens and there’s some baby-making action going on? That means there might be fertilized eggs, which have the potential to become baby chicks if the hen sits on the eggs long enough for chick development. We currently have four roosters with our layers, so the vast majority of the eggs we sell are probably fertilized. But our hens don’t sit on the eggs and so the chicks don’t develop.
So there you have it – animal sex ed part 1. ~ Parmenides