Cluck-a-doodle-doo
Now here’s a worrying story. George the cock, a chicken that lives in Devon, was once a Georgina. He / she spontaneously changed sex over the course of two years and has swapped egg laying for early morning crowing.
The Telegraph has come up with the most succinct explanation of how and why:
It is believed that it can happen when a damaged ovary causes the hen’s testosterone levels to soar, turning the remaining ovary into a testicle.
Sounds nasty.
But also worrying. Why? Because before you set up your home flock you should get permission from your local council’s environmental health department, and one of the conditions they place on saying yes is usually that you won’t get a cockerel.
Male birds are noisy and can be anti-social, crowing as the sun rises and waking up the neighbours. If one of your ladies becomes a laddie, then, (s)he would probably have to go.
Sex-changing chickens are rare, but this is by no means a one-off. The same paper reported another example of a hen doing the same thing in Bath in 2006. Now called ‘Freaky’ (rather apt) it’s aggressive and crows at sunrise.
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