Lucy the Crowing Hen – photo courtesy of Karen Seelert
Synchronicity has struck in the Urban Chicken Podcast family. Last week brought two seemingly unrelated emails from separate Urban Chicken Podcast listeners about the same unusual topic – spontaneous sex reversal in their hens! That seems more than just an odd coincidence.
As discussed at length in Urban Chicken Podcast Episode 018 with Dr. Jacquie Jacobs, the phenomenon of spontaneous sex reversal occurs in hens when the bird’s left ovary stops functioning properly. The drop in estrogen in the hen’s body caused by the damaged or failing left ovary causes a rise in testosterone in the chicken. Increased testosterone activates the dormant second undeveloped sex organ in the hen to grow into an ovotestis. This will cause the hen to grow to physically look and behave as a rooster. (LEARN MORE HERE at UCP Episode 018).
This is a rare occurring phenomenon in nature. So imagine my surprise and interest when I received two separate reports of ostensibly spontaneous sex reversed hens from UCP listeners in the same week!
The first message containing details of an odd behaving hen came from Alison Y. She wrote:
I have eight hens – maybe seven now! They are a year old and have been laying 5 to 7 eggs a day for about eight months. Every once in a while I get eight eggs but one is very small and when cracked has no yolk. This one “hen” has in the last month been mounting the other hens like a rooster. It doesn’t really look any different, but it is a solid red in color. No spurs and it doesn’t act aggressively toward me like my old rooster used to. That bugger was mean! The only difference from the other two red hens, is it’s neck feathers are lighter in color. No big tail feathers. It started crowing today!!! So I had to look it up and see if it was possible. Guess it is. Crazy!
Intrigued and excited about Alison’s possible spontaneously sex reversed hen, I responded asking whether this odd chicken actually lays eggs or at least used to lay at some point. Alison was a sport and followed up on my inquiry. Here is what she reported:
OK. So. Yesterday I separated them. I put all but the one hen in the chicken tractor and left the one to free range with access to the coop. I just checked the coop and viola there is an egg!!! Normal in every way, just a little lighter in shell color.
…
All I know is this hen acts and will crow like a rooster. How bizarre!! I’m going to keep them separated and see if I still get more eggs from “It”. Hahaha
Within a handful of days from receiving Alison’s message about her rooster-esque hen, I got an email from Karen, another UCP listener. Karen wrote me to report that one of her older hens has begun to act like a rooster. Here is what Karen wrote:
I listened to your podcast the other day as I was researching this phenomenon. I have a 4 year old Buff Orpington hen [Lucy] who just started crowing the other day. I am amazed. Would love to learn more and/or talk to someone who has experience with this! She was a regular layer, but has not laid an egg in a while.
I’m attaching a picture of Lucy, our hen [see top of post]. We noticed her crowing about a week ago when I brought her inside the house. I could not believe it! We have been paying close attention to her comb and wattles to see if they are growing (I noticed last week that they seemed awfully RED and larger than they had been). I have also noticed her “dancing” around a couple of the other hens, just like our rooster.
Video of Two Crowing Hens and a Third Wannabe (cute, but not ideal):
This Hen started crowing after turning 10 years old (low estrogen in her?!):
Here’s a Hen who crows like a Rooster (the video notes say she acts like one too):
Here is another Hen that Suddenly Stopped Laying Eggs and Started Crowing:
