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Looking at farming the answer is a significant No. Female calves are worth much more than male, and male chickens have so low value that they tend to be grind d
by belorn 7y ago
Looking at farming the answer is a significant No. Female calves are worth much more than male, and male chickens have so low value that they tend to be grind down to dust as soon their sex can be identified. If it was possible to raise cows and chickens that only gave female offspring it would cause a major change in agriculture. That it has not happen is a good indication that you can't selective breed for female offspring.
- bluGill 7y agoIn the case of cows we can selectively breed for sex, 97% of dairy calfs are females, the 3% males are mix of particularly good mothers that they want to pass genes on from, and cases where the sex selection failed. There is a large amount of data/science to select which mothers gets to pass their genes onto sons (which in turn pass their genes onto thousands of mothers). This works in part because most cows are bred with AI - bulls are dangerous and so nobody wants them if they can avoid it. The above is numbers from one dairy farm I know of with ~3000 cows. I'm sure each farm is different.
- belorn 7y agoI did not know that you could buy (patented) cow semen that is sorted to guarantee to produce only female cattle. I have family that operate a small-ish farm with several hundred cows and they certainly do not use such technology. It just a matter of fact for them that female calves are worth significant more and half the time you get females and the other half you get males. I will somehow try mention this in passing to them, through I suspect they do not do use artificial insemination which is a required step for this technology. I also wonder if in the future chicken farms will apply this when the technology get more refined, the patents expires and the cost of artificial insemination is cheaper than wasting time and resources on eggs only to then kill half the offsprings.