http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1809649.html
This is worse than dogs & cats living together.
A sign of the Apocalypse?
A sign that Bird Flu has unforseen side effects?
A reason to stop eating those yummy Chik-Fil-Lay sandwiches?
A hint that RuPaul will change his/her name to Colonel Sanders?
Or proof that the President will make Jack Chick the new Secretary Of Agriculture?
Your comments, please?
Try this:
“The dimwitted owners of a hen were completely flummoxed when a neighbor, as a joke, replaced it with a male bird…”
Or –
“Victoria Roberts, after years spent bemoaning declining testosterone levels at the Poultry Club of Great Britain …”
Or –
“After years of forcing eggs up his swollen butt, Freaky decided one day to just end the deception, soup pot or not …”
Or –
“Mirror reporters most gullible, recent study reports …”
Or –
“Chickster to ink deal with Danish film company …”
I dunno, Bosda, she seemed like such a good egg. Despite the neighbor’s clucking, I think it’s nothing to brood about.
(No offense, and not to be pedantic, but your sig. quote could be improved by removing the ‘e’ from “Milhous”). Best regards and wishes – where do you find these stories?
Is my sig improved, now?
Or maybe it’s not all that wierd.
Some animals change sex during their lives. There are quite a few kinds of fish that do this. I’ve heard of sex-change among Turkies as well (although I don’t remember where and I seem to recall that it was rumored but not confirmed).
In any case it is not unheard of for some animals to change sex, although I believe a chicken changing sex would still be pretty noteworthy.
It’s a stretch to look at this as a sign of the end times.
All praise the mighty Cecil Adams!
I hate to be pedantic but I’ll make the sacrifice just this once. The word "turkey’ is an exception to the “change y to i and add es” rule for forming plurals. The plural of the name of the bird “turkey” is “turkeys”.
I was under the impression that Ananova wasn’t really a ‘reputable’ site. Is that not true? I know on Fark, it’s usually dismissed as bullsh*t
“Turkies” isn’t an affectionate name for people of Turkish descent? Or the candy offered by the white witch (affectionate nickname again, of course) in TCON?
Ohhh… the birds…
nevermind.
BINGO!!!
**Hen Turns Into Rooster. Was Jack Chick Right? **
Buckaw buckaw!
Damn you! Can’t you see I am at work! 
My first reaction to the quotes in the OP was “Weekly World News”. It’s not quite wacky enough for them, though. Now if the transgendered chicken belongs to Batboy…
Well, he has better qualifications for the job that the Brown guy did as the head of FEMA.
I didn’t catch any reference turkeys switching sexes in that article, but maybe that’s what I read and misremembered it just now.
In any case, we have plenty of other examples of vertebrates switching sex.
You are correct–my memory played me false. It was only semi-related.
That was in the Express either today or yesterday (I think the paper’s been chucked out now). The reason they gave for that happening was that the chicken’s functioning ovary got damaged somehow, and the other one started working and produced enough testosterone to give the chicken a male appearance and behaviour.
Do chickens really only have one functioning ovary at a time?
Yep, I think so.
I’m not getting the Jack Chick references. Can anyone provide a link?
As for the chicken, my gut instinct is that there’s some sort of mutation that caused it to stop producing female hormones and start producing male hormone. I doubt it’s capable of mating or peeing while standing up. It’s the world’s first chicken FtM pre-op transsexual.
I realize this is the Straight Dope and one should provide a cite but a wuick search on the web made me not want to do that.
So I am going by my memory. I used to work with pet birds a lot and I remember that when the vet used an endoscope to sex them (check for ovaries) you always had to go in on one side because there was only one to see. I think only one is functional and the other atrophies. I think it had something to do with there not being enough room in there for two ovaries to be producing eggs. I can’t remember the side that usually had the working oveary because it’s been a while and my bird anatomy is rusty. Since chickens are also birds I would imagine the anatomy is the same.
Of couse I am going by my old bad memory but I am sure someone will come along with a cite.