Sorry to say, but the male of the species is just more valuable than the female
Why the brood cock is ten times more valuable than the hen?
Many breeders believe that the hen is more valuable than the brood cock. It might be true in a few aspects. Not necessarily in general.
The contribution of the mother to its offspring is no more than that of the father. Fifty percent of the genes in an individual come from the mother, the other 50 percent from the father. That’s genetically speaking. When it comes to genetic contribution to the offspring, the father and the mother each contribute half of the whole, except when it comes to the sex-linked genes as the hen will provide her sex-linked genes only to her sons and never to her daughters, while the cock will provide all its genes to both the sons and daughters. And the thing called mitochondria inheritance.
Practically and economically speaking, however, a good brood cock is at least ten times the worth of a good hen. It’s simple mathematics. We can mate a brood cock to ten hens at a time, while we can only mate a hen to one cock at a time in order to ascertain the exact pedigree of the offspring. Even if you are not concerned with pedigree, the hen lays only certain number of eggs in a clutch regardless of the number of cocks mated to her.
Moreover, brood cocks do not have broody periods during which hens stop laying eggs and desire to sit on and set their eggs, thus, losing more time for reproduction. The hen’s efficiency also deteriorates faster than a cock. Many brood cocks could be utilized for 5-7 years. Hens seldom last in the breeding pens that long without deteriorating.
Therefore, if its potential is maximized, a brood cock may produce ten times as many offspring as those of any single hen in a season, and much more in a lifetime.
Another very important thing is that we can judge the value of the brood cock by its fighting ability. Something we can hardly do with the hen. So when we invest big for a brood fowl, we better make it on a good brood cock, rather than a hen.
That’s why almost every time we, at RB Sugbo, introduced a new blood to our pool, it is a brood cock. First, because we can spar the brood cock, we can be sure that the individual possesses the fighting traits we want. Also, we can introduce his blood to many hens allowing not only more sampling but also variety.
If there is one advantage of a good hen over a good brood cock it is that mitochondria, a very vital component of the cells, are all inherited from one's mother, not father (the egg contains mitochondria, sperm cells do not). Thus a line of hens with good mitochondria must be valuable.
If we have a line of hens with good mitochondria, we ought to maintain it. We have to keep the pullets out of this line and mate them with our best brood cocks. Then keep the pullets out of these matings and breed them to other good brood cocks, so on and so forth. This will keep the standards of our farm competitive for many years. All in all however, we maintain that a good brood cock is at least ten times more valuable than a good hen. If only for the very practical reason that a single brood cock will produce much more offspring than any single hen. More offspring means more sampling and more sampling means more accurate assessment of its value. Sorry to say, but the male of the species is just more valuable.
Blakliz .
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