Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
How can you tell if a bird is pregnant?
Matt:
I could tell when my dog was pregnant. You can tell when a cat or a horse is pregnant. Why don't we ever see a pregnant bird?
-- Dweezil (not that Dweezil), out there
Well, Dweeze, you'll have to look fast. (I'm assuming by "pregnant" you mean hauling around an egg...) Most birds don't waste much time getting the thing out and into the nest. In fact, until the calendar says it's time to mate, birds' reproductive organs (all internal, for most species) are shriveled to practically nothing. When spring comes, they puff up to about ten times non-breeding size. After they've found a mate and done it a few times, an ovum attached to the egg yolk is sucked into the beginning of the oviduct, where it's fertilized. In chickens, this takes about 18 minutes. Then it's squeezed down the tube to an area called the magnum, where the egg "white" (albumen) is added. Figure three hours at step two. Then it moves on to the shell-membrane stage (one hour), then to the last stop, the uterus, for the final egg shell and shell coloring (about 20 hours). Most birds labor in eggbirth for less than five minutes, though turkeys can take a couple of hours. So, beginning to end, most birds are pregnant for a little over 24 hours. And a lot of that time is spent hanging curtains and painting the nursery for the big event; the extra egg weight makes them vulnerable, so they're not usually very active. When breeding season is over, the oviduct shrinks so the female doesn't have to haul around useless weight for 10 months of the year. And birds can't carry twins. Only one oviduct enlarges to prevent two eggs from crushing each other and having Mama lay an omelet.
Here's something you might be interested in.
How can you tell if a bird is pregnant?
How can you tell if a bird is pregnant?
Matt:
I could tell when my dog was pregnant. You can tell when a cat or a horse is pregnant. Why don't we ever see a pregnant bird?
-- Dweezil (not that Dweezil), out there
Well, Dweeze, you'll have to look fast. (I'm assuming by "pregnant" you mean hauling around an egg...) Most birds don't waste much time getting the thing out and into the nest. In fact, until the calendar says it's time to mate, birds' reproductive organs (all internal, for most species) are shriveled to practically nothing. When spring comes, they puff up to about ten times non-breeding size. After they've found a mate and done it a few times, an ovum attached to the egg yolk is sucked into the beginning of the oviduct, where it's fertilized. In chickens, this takes about 18 minutes. Then it's squeezed down the tube to an area called the magnum, where the egg "white" (albumen) is added. Figure three hours at step two. Then it moves on to the shell-membrane stage (one hour), then to the last stop, the uterus, for the final egg shell and shell coloring (about 20 hours). Most birds labor in eggbirth for less than five minutes, though turkeys can take a couple of hours. So, beginning to end, most birds are pregnant for a little over 24 hours. And a lot of that time is spent hanging curtains and painting the nursery for the big event; the extra egg weight makes them vulnerable, so they're not usually very active. When breeding season is over, the oviduct shrinks so the female doesn't have to haul around useless weight for 10 months of the year. And birds can't carry twins. Only one oviduct enlarges to prevent two eggs from crushing each other and having Mama lay an omelet.
Comments