Spontaneous sex change in chicken not a joke?

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-12906196

So far as I know, this is not some April Fool joke. The date on the story is 3/31/11.
Basically, a hen became a sort-of rooster, crowing, strutting and changing comb and wattle and quit laying eggs, after a molt. Veternary suggests reason as though it is not unusual.

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Now, if only some of us could do this?

I mean perhaps the higher lifeforms (Us, that is) maybe we could go the other way? We want the plain looking ones to become the flashier, more attractive variety. Of course, when the chickens come in my size, they call them Ostriches!

Wren

Actually...

Gertie still looks mostly like a hen. I've seen plenty of normal egg laying hens with as much comb and wattle, and her feathers still look very henish. Looking at the picture, I see a hen. If I saw her strutting and crowing and doing the rooster shuffle, I would be more able to see what the story is talking about.

It isn't at all uncommon for one of the hens in a roosterless flock to start acting like a rooster. Whether or not that's because of mycotoxins, I can't really say.

So anyhow, we humans can definitely do a better job of taking on the characteristics of other than our birth sex. The change to that chicken is nothing compared to what hormone therapy will do for us humans.

Oh yah... chickens don't have external genitalia. Nothing short of a necropsy is going to show if the chicken traded in her ovaries for testes. I very strongly doubt it, though.

Just google "effects of the

tmf's picture

Just google "effects of the mycotoxins", the BBC seem legit. Some variety seem to over feminise femal live stock, but i'm not interested in the cancer and other possible effects.

tmf