Birth: how do chickens hatch? How does a chicken appear? Where do chickens come from

During the period of reaching puberty, the eggs of the bird mature. After the rupture of the membrane covering them, they enter the protein part of the oviduct, where the egg protein and its membranes are formed, and then into the uterus, where the shell is formed. The duration of egg formation ranges from 23 to 26 hours. Spermatozoa can maintain their fertilizing ability for a long time (up to 20 days) while in the folds of the oviduct mucosa. Therefore, one mating with a male is enough for the laying hen to lay fertilized eggs for a long time.

There is a constant exchange of substances between the embryo, yolk, protein and shell. The embryo uses the nutrients of the egg, releases metabolic products, breathes, absorbs and releases thermal energy.

At the beginning of incubation, the embryo does not yet have a constant body temperature. It is the same as that of the air surrounding the egg. In the second half of incubation, some features of a warm-blooded animal appear in the embryo. The temperature inside the egg becomes higher than the environment, reaching 40-42 ° C, i.e., the body temperature of the bird.

With the development of the muscles and nervous system, the embryo acquires the ability to voluntary movements. They are already noticeable by the tenth day of incubation. The embryo moves its limbs and neck, lowers and raises its head.

By the end of incubation, the chick takes up almost the entire egg. It lies with the tail part in the sharp end of the egg with legs pressed to the stomach, head - to the air chamber.

Its neck is bent, so that the head is covered by the right wing, and only the beak sticks out from under it. Protein and amniotic fluid have been completely absorbed by this time, and allantoic fluid has evaporated. The yolk, which has already become thick, is drawn into the abdominal cavity of the chicken along with the yolk sac.

The intensity of respiration increases with the age of the embryo. If in two days of incubation a chicken embryo absorbs about 4 cm3 of oxygen, then on the fifth - 16, tenth - 70, fourteenth - 270, on the nineteenth - 536 cm3. In total, each chicken egg during incubation uses about 4 liters of oxygen and releases 3 liters of carbon dioxide. After birth, a male chick breathes 18 - 21 times per minute, a female - 31 - 37 times, provided that they are not in a state of stress.

After hatching, the chicks rest for a long time, as they spend a lot of energy breaking the shell.
Body temperature in young animals at this age depends on its level in environment. In a day-old chick, heat loss is higher than heat production. Chickens are very sensitive to drafts, as they create a cold effect and can cause hypothermia. The complete formation of thermoregulation mechanisms in young animals depends on the final formation of juvenile plumage, which is completed at 60-90 days of age.

1

The birth of a chicken

2

The birth of a chicken

3

The birth of a chicken

4

The birth of a chicken

5

The birth of a chicken

6

The birth of a chicken

7

The birth of a chicken

8

The birth of a chicken

9

The birth of a chicken

10

The birth of a chicken

11

The birth of a chicken

12

The birth of a chicken

13

The birth of a chicken

14

The birth of a chicken

15

The birth of a chicken

16

The birth of a chicken

17

The birth of a chicken

18

The birth of a chicken

The birth of a new life is an incredible and touching moment. What a pleasure to watch when chicken eggs turn into the cutest yellow lumps. Surely even experienced breeders cannot help but be touched by a newly hatched chicken. Let's live this touching moment together, find out how chickens hatch - videos and photos will help us with this!

Signs of upcoming hatching

Your babies can be born both traditionally - from under the hen, and through the incubator. In any case, it is necessary to control the incubation process, but in the incubator this, of course, is done more carefully. To be sure that your eggs will definitely turn out to be a brood, they must be 100% fertilized and of high quality. Suppose that you laid good eggs, the conditions in the incubator were correct, and how do you understand that the chick will be born soon? The incubation period of a chicken egg is 21 days.

Three days before the expected birthday of the chicks, you need to stop turning the eggs in the incubator and monitor them carefully. In the egg, which will soon become a chicken, characteristic tapping with its beak is heard - this is a small bird asking to be released. Sometimes very quiet squeaks are even heard, such signs of life begin to appear already on the 17-19th day. After tapping, there is a turn of pecking - if you see a small hole in the shell, do not rush to "help" the bird get out. The first video showing us the process of hatching a chick, see below.

Sometimes from the moment of pecking to the complete hatching of the bird, several hours pass. The main thing is to periodically pay attention to such an egg with a peck, sometimes the bird still needs help, otherwise the chicken may suffocate and die in its shell.

hatching process

If your chicks are to hatch in the nest, from under the mother hen, then she, as a rule, monitors and controls the entire process. However, you should not completely trust his bird, sometimes negligent mothers come across who can ask a newborn baby with their mass. But then you can see an extremely touching video starring a caring mother hen and newborn chickens!

So, the process of hatching chickens goes like this:

First, a small crack appears on the shell, which turns into a small hole within a few hours.
Further, the little chicken rotates in the egg and, with the help of its formation called the "egg tooth", splits the shell around the circumference. It should be noted that during incubation, the shell becomes thinner and becomes very fragile; as a rule, the chick needs from 6 to 12 hours to crack the shell. While the chicken is struggling with the egg shell, freeing its way to freedom, the hen makes specific calling sounds.
It happens that the chick becomes exhausted ahead of time and cannot continue to fight with the shell, in which case either the mother hen or a person comes to the rescue. Unfortunately, the mortality among chicks that need help even at the hatching stage is higher than among all others.

Another video about the birth of chicken chicks for your attention next!

Further, shortly before the complete exit of the chick from the shell, it absorbs the residual contents of the yolk sac - this is a reserve of energy for the bird for the first hours of life.

A chicken completely freed from the shell is exhausted, weak and completely wet. It takes him a couple of hours to dry off, "gather up his strength" and appear before us in all its glory - a yellowish squeaky lump!

Video "How chicks are born"

And at the end of our acquaintance with newborn chickens, a video showing the first hours of life of little chicks! It is worth noting that a lot of videos on the Internet are devoted to this topic!

All stages of chick development, 21 days in 2 minutes

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The scientific answer to this question

Of course, chicken. This is quite obvious, since in order for offspring to appear, a parent must appear. The answer to this question is in the Bible, and recently science has finally succeeded in convincingly proving this fact.

Chicken ovaries produce a protein called Ovocleidin-17. With the help of a computer, scientists studied in detail the formation of the shell and came to the conclusion that this protein plays a key role in this process. The shell of a chicken egg is 90% calcium carbonate, and contains a lot of trace elements: copper, fluorine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, phosphorus, sulfur, zinc, silicon and others, but the chicken gets all this from food. But Ovocleidin-17 is produced only by the chicken itself, therefore, in order for the egg to appear, it is absolutely necessary.

Of course, the question “What came first? ..” is rather philosophical and rhetorical, but now we have a scientifically based answer to it.

Some common myths about chicken eggs:

It is easier to peel an egg if you douse it with cold water. This is a wrong conclusion: the ease of cleaning does not depend on the cooling of the boiled egg, but on its age. One- and two-week-old eggs are the easiest to peel, while fresh eggs are the most problematic.

Fresh eggs are the best. This is not true. According to experts, eggs need from three to eight days to mature. Only after that their aroma is fully revealed.

The yolk of "bio eggs" is more yellow. This is not true. The intensity of the color of the yolk is not determined by whether the hen walks freely on the grass or is forced to live in a cage. The color of the yolk depends entirely on the food. Therefore, carotenoids are often added to the feed of chickens living in cages, which enhance the color of the yolk, which is prohibited in the case of organic eggs.

Motley hens lay brown eggs. This is not always true. The determining factor for the color of the shell is not the suit, but the genes. If we talk about a purebred bird, then chickens with white earlobes lay white eggs, and those with red earlobes, on the contrary, brown. However, it is unequivocal that every hen lays eggs with the same shell color all her life.

We all know that birds don't have teeth. But a long time ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, birds had teeth. They lost their teeth long ago, but a new study on the talpid2 gene mutation in chickens has shown they still have the genes for tooth growth.
Biologist Matthew Harris of the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, Germany, investigated the mutation of this gene. He was interested in what influences the development of organs in chicken embryos. Harris made an accidental discovery that chickens could grow teeth: he was looking at the head of a 16-day-old chick embryo that had undergone a random mutation and noticed tiny protrusions on the edge of the beak.

Scientists have known about the deadly recessive talpid2 gene for a long time, but never suggested a relationship between the gene and tooth formation, because mutated embryos do not survive to emerge from the egg - the maturation period usually lasts 21 days. However, scientists managed to incubate them for up to 18 days, and during the last day of these 18, they began to grow tiny teeth, which birds have been deprived of for several million years.
The teeth, although small, had a conical shape - such can be seen in the mouth of crocodiles or ancient fossilized birds. The earliest known ancestors of birds were called archosaurs - they had a mouth and teeth very similar to crocodiles. The resemblance is not surprising, since birds are much more closely related to reptiles than they are to mammals. Over time, the development of the beak led to the fact that the birds lost their teeth and began to look like modern, familiar birds.
It is surprising that mutant chicks still have the genes responsible for the formation of teeth, since birds lost their teeth about 70-80 million years ago. Harris and his colleague John Fallon of the University of Wisconsin decided to continue their research and find out if this gene was preserved in healthy chickens.
The activated talpid2 gene in healthy chicken embryos also led to the formation of teeth in chickens - they developed the same "reptile" teeth and other similar genetic traits. The success of the experiment not only confirmed the hypothesis of the presence of teeth in ancient birds, but also proved that the formation of teeth in mutant chickens was not just a random one-time mutation.

Hens laying blue eggs

If you ask someone what color chicken eggs are, they will give you two options: brown and white, and they will be absolutely right - most of these poultry are laid with these eggs, but there are exceptions to the rule.
Some breeds, namely Araucan, Dongxiang and Lushi, differ from other representatives of the domestic chicken species: their eggs have a pronounced bluish-blue color.
Araucan chickens appeared in the mountainous regions of Chile and got their name from the Indian tribe of the same name, which was engaged in breeding them. Later, chickens spread to North America where they became known as the Mapuche. The first mention of hens laying blue eggs dates back to 1526. Dongxiang and Lushi chickens originate from China, where they have been bred for over 500 years. What, long ago, caused some chickens to change the usual color of their eggs?

Scientists have found that the culprit is a mutation of the SLCO1B3 gene, which is responsible for the production of one of the coloring pigments contained in the eggshell - bilirubin. Once upon a time, the ancestors of modern chickens were infected with the endogenous retrovirus EAV-HP, which introduced its genetic material into the DNA of healthy cells, resulting in an excess of bilirubin and, as a result, the blue color of the eggs.
The mutation in Araucan chickens is different from the Chinese chickens, suggesting they are caused by two different retrovirus outbreaks. I must say that the changes in the body provoked by the virus do not pose any danger to birds, as well as to a person who eats them, therefore blue eggs These breeds are now in high demand, because they have a delicate and refined taste.
In recent years, tailless chicken has returned to amateur farms.

Israeli scientists managed to breed absolutely bald chickens.

The sight of a bird is creepy, but the invention also has positive points, now the path of the chicken from the chicken coop to the hostess's pan has become shorter.

Practical breeders have bred in Israel a new breed of chickens that have neither fluff nor feathers. This achievement belongs to Professor Avigdor Kochaner, who works at the Hebrew University at the Faculty of Agricultural Genetics. Having spent a quarter of a century on genetic experiments, he brought chickens without feathers.
The Greens were outraged. But the professor argued the need for such a poultry with the Israeli heat, in which thousands of birds die in summer on farms in desert areas. Meat chickens eat a lot, so they are much hotter than ordinary ones. Their own temperature is 42 degrees, outside at this time of year no less. In the absence of powerful air conditioners, a cover of feathers and down only contributes to overheating. The rabbis, however, hint that this chicken is not exactly kosher.

Science does not consider such a mutation to be a disease. These chickens are quite healthy, like, for example, albino animals. At the Faculty of Genetics, they experiment: scientists weigh birds, measure the offspring of both absolutely naked pairs and mixed ones. Of course, they are all artificially inseminated, constantly monitoring the population and development of chickens. According to Alon Eiger, an assistant to Professor Kohaner, there is no difference between the two.

Now it remains only to prove to the animal advocates that the experiments on the creation of naked chickens are not a mockery of them, but to the rabbis that the new breed is completely kosher.

Which modern animal has the longest tail?

Which modern animal has the most a long tail: a monkey, a crocodile or a peacock? No, the most tailed animal on Earth is ... a chicken.

You can only see long-tailed chickens in the small Japanese village of Katyo, located twenty kilometers from the city of Kochi on the island of Shikoku.

270 years ago, this breed was bred by the peasant Ridzae-mon Takeichi. In those days, local feudal lords liked to surround themselves with a magnificent retinue and squires. The shafts of the spears of the squires of the solemn processions were decorated with long bird feathers.

Breeding long-tailed chickens has become a tradition in this Japanese village. The longest tail of the light purple breed, which owns the "record" - 7 meters 30 centimeters.

Raising chickens on your own is a profitable business. If used for hatching layers, it is better to take young hens. Many farmers use the incubation method of breeding chickens. To get a good result, you need to know how the hatching process takes place, and after how many days the chickens hatch.

The chick formation process is divided into three stages:

The laying of the organs of the embryo, head, tissues. There is an active metabolism, at the first stage it is important to ensure a comfortable stay.
It lasts 15 days - the growth and development of the chick occurs. Excess liquid disappears from the egg. It is important to prevent overheating during this period of time in order to avoid the birth of weakened chicks. To maintain the required level of humidity, you can spray the future brood with liquid.
Last day before hatching. The contents of the egg - protein and yolk, have already been used by the chick, so it tends to be born. To speed up the process, you need to provide heat in the incubator.

hatching

Subject to the conditions of keeping in the equipment and normal incubation by the laying hen, after 2.5–3 weeks, the chickens hatch. With the onset of 21 days, the chicks begin to peck from the inside of the shell with the help of an “egg tooth”.

Process:

A crack forms on the egg. If you put it in the palm of your hand, bring it to your ear, you can clearly hear how the chick scratches. It spins inside the egg, as a result, the crack gradually increases.
A small hole is formed, and the baby, making the last effort, splits the shell into two parts and is born. Chicks hatch for a long time, the process can drag on for a day.
After birth, the chick is wet, it needs to dry out - this will take up to 2 hours. Hatched babies are planted after drying, given to drink and eat.

Do you need help

Chick hatching is a natural process, but inexperienced poultry farmers often try to help.

Assistance rules:

When hatching a hen, it is better to wait for the chick to be born on its own, since before the final hatching, its circulatory system has not yet been fully formed.
It is not necessary to pull out the feathered one, destroying the shell can damage the vessels. This will weaken the chicken and lead to death. When brooding chicks, minimal human intervention is required during the hatching period. It is only necessary to control that the chicken does not crush the hatched chicks.
If the eggs are in the incubator, the farmer oversees the process. But it is important to ensure a normal climate in the apparatus. Before starting, you need to sprinkle the eggs with warm water, which will make the shell softer. Then the chickens will be able to destroy it without hindrance.

Breeding methods

When buying chicks, it is not always possible to form the right herd. Many sellers under the guise of chickens sell young cockerels. Therefore, if there is already a good breed, you can start growing yourself. The process is easy, but requires certain skills and knowledge.

Hatching

How many days does it take for chicks to hatch under a hen? The process takes approximately 3 weeks without human intervention. Sometimes the chicks may hatch a little earlier or later.

The main task is to put fertilized eggs under the chicken. The rest of the process is controlled by the laying hen, and after 21 days, squeaking chicks are born. If a chick does not appear, the egg may not have been fertilized.

Peculiarities:

In the process of incubation, the chicken gets up from the nest daily - this is the norm. She needs to eat and drink water. Periodically, the mother hen turns the eggs on the other side so that the heating occurs evenly. When the embryo freezes, the chicken feels it, throws it aside.
To prevent the laying hen from leaving the nest, you can not pick up eggs. It is necessary to ensure her comfort, a dark, quiet place is perfect.

Incubator

If everything is simple with a hen, then in the case of using special equipment, the process requires constant human participation. On which day the chicks hatch in the incubator depends on the conditions created.

The microclimate is of great importance for the timely hatching of chicks. In the absence of the necessary heat, chickens can die altogether.

Temperature regime

Some incubators are equipped automatic system turning eggs. If there is no such function, you need to do it yourself, otherwise the brood will not be born.

The risk of death also exists at high temperatures. But if there is not enough heat, the chickens develop slowly and are born weak, sometimes they do not even have enough strength to get out of the shell.

With a lack of heat, they can hatch later, on days 22–25, if there is no chicken after this period, it makes no sense to wait.

Humidity

The climate in the incubator is very important for successful hatching. The state of the air plays a special role. The rate at which chicks are born and the hardness of the shell depend on the level of humidity. In dry air, it becomes too hard.

You can determine the imminent hatching by hearing the characteristic sounds - rustling, faint knocking, squeaking. Such manifestations indicate that he is alive and will soon get out of the shell. You can find out the time when the chicks appear by calculating the days, while you need to control the microclimate in the incubator.

Important: 48 hours before the expected hatching, you should stop turning over, you need to start irrigating the eggs with warm water twice a day, which will help soften the shell.

What breeds are grown in an incubator?

You can grow chickens in artificial conditions of both meat and egg breeds, popular types:

Brama;
Broilers COBB-500;
Master Grey;
Kuchinsky Anniversary.

How to get healthy chicks in an incubator?

A common problem is the non-viability of part or all of the masonry. The main reason for the poor result is the infertility of the eggs. This is possible with the insolvency of the rooster, which needs to be replaced.

Careful attention to the process will allow you to get large and healthy offspring when growing chickens by incubation.

Also, the cause of marriage can be infection of eggs before laying with fungi and bacteria. This happens when sanitary conditions are not observed in storage.

It is important to take those eggs that are in the nest.

Preparation before laying plays a huge role:

They should be preheated for 8-10 hours at room temperature. Then, when moving into heat, condensation will not form on the surface. If, nevertheless, a liquid has formed, a blockage of the pores of the egg is obtained, the embryos die from a lack of oxygen.
It is important to ensure normal air circulation, if necessary, ventilate the incubator.
Maintain a constant temperature throughout the entire period, creating conditions as close to natural as possible.
Turn eggs 1-2 times a day.

It might be useful to read: