Do birds become "pregnant"?

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

I was sifting through my facebook feed today, and apparently someone I know was told that birds do not get pregnant. I don't have the full story of whether the person explained themselves or not, but the other party on facebook seemed to disagree.

I'm not a bird expert. I know very little about birds, but I do know that birds typically don't have penises, but rather use cloacas, which sends sperm to the female to attempt to fertilize her eggs, and then a shell is formed before the hard shelled egg is expelled from the body.

To my understanding, the embryo forms in the EGG itself rather than the body of the female bird, and most definitions of pregnancy (that I simply googled) seemed to define pregnancy as an embryo forming within the body of the female during gestation.

But that's just my basic understanding. So I ask, would you say a bird gets pregnant?

We're not really talking about a specific species of bird. I do realize that mating habits and even reproductive organs can slightly vary depending on bird species. This is kind of just a general bird question.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I am not a biologist, nor do I play one on TV, but I would answer "no". In my mind, "pregnant" is when the embryo is implanted and drawing sustenance directly from the body of the mother, and that never happens with any egg-laying species. The term "gravid" (which can mean "pregnant", but is more often used as "carrying eggs") probably better applies.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, pregnant implies live young, rather than eggs, and although "bird" is a woolly classification, I don't know of any birds that do that.

 

[Erttheking]

Technically. I doubt it would affect them the same way it does mammals though.

 

[Michel Henzel]

From what I understand, pregnancy is defined as: implantation of a developing organism into the wall of a uterus. As that does not happen it's probably called something else.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Birds can't become pregnant; all embryonic development happens in the egg. That said, you can often tell when they're about to lay eggs. My family used to own some pet doves growing up, and the females would develop a visible bulge as the egg formed and moved down the abdomen.

There is a condition known as "egg binding," where a bird is too sick or weak to expel the egg. Such a scenario is fatal unless treated promptly.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Yeah, pregnant implies live young, rather than eggs, and although "bird" is a woolly classification, I don't know of any birds that do that.

I thought pregnant simply meant 'impregnated eggs'? I mean a snake can be pregnant, same as dog or spider or person or Unicorn. So long as a female is somewhat in the process of fertilized reproduction, she's pregnant.

Edit: species that lay eggs that are later fertilized by sperm I guess don't count.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Ok if I read the above comments correctly, birth via egg does not count as pregant per say? In that case doesn't that apply to every animal that can lay an egg?

 

[Bobular]

Yeah, pregnant implies live young, rather than eggs, and although "bird" is a woolly classification, I don't know of any birds that do that.

I thought pregnant simply meant 'impregnated eggs'? I mean a snake can be pregnant, same as dog or spider or person or Unicorn. So long as a female is somewhat in the process of fertilized reproduction, she's pregnant.

Edit: species that lay eggs that are later fertilized by sperm I guess don't count.

Naw, unicorns bread asexually by releasing spores, which is what gives them there distinctive sparkle effect. That is how unicorns remain 'pure' as they don't have sex and why unicorn blood is so valuable as virgin blood becomes rarer.

This is also why unicorns are an endangered species, the spores don't react well to 'corruption' such as the pollution in our atmosphere. This is why Trump's anti green polices are so bad, he is literally aborting unborn unicorns!

OT:

I personally would say when a bird is carrying an egg that is pregnant, but it wouldn't surprise me if pregnant only applied to mammals and pregnancy in other types of animals is officially called something else. Official names doesn't change everyday usage of the term though.

 

[Dismal purple]

I am not a biologist, nor do I play one on TV, but I would answer "no". In my mind, "pregnant" is when the embryo is implanted and drawing sustenance directly from the body of the mother, and that never happens with any egg-laying species. The term "gravid" (which can mean "pregnant", but is more often used as "carrying eggs") probably better applies.

I had to google this because gravid is the word for pregnancy in swedish. I had no idea it existed in english as well. You learn something new every day.

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

I had to google this because gravid is the word for pregnancy in swedish. I had no idea it existed in english as well. You learn something new every day.

Both terms are loosely based on Latin as far as I can tell (although pregnancy might also have some French origins):

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pregnant&allowed_in_frame=0
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=gravid

 

[balladbird]

What luck! I knew that, if I stayed on the escapist long enough, my studies to become an ornithologist would come in handy for a forum discussion. XD

So, as has been said before: depending on what you mean by 'pregnant', the answer has varying degrees of complexity, but regardless what you mean, the answer is basically still "no".

Now, I assume what you mean when you say "pregnant" is that you want to know if birds conceive internally. That is to say, that penetrative sex between a male and female takes place to fertilize the egg, which the female then lays so the embryo can develop.

Such a coupling is possible for some species of birds, though rare even in their cases, but for most species of birds this mammalian concept of intercourse can't take place for one very basic reason: In the majority of bird species, the males have testes, but no penis. Likewise, Female birds don't have an organ that can be said to equate to the mammalian vagina, but instead both males and females have a cloaca, a kind of dual-role anus/genital exitpoint

Rather, what tends to happen is that female birds, after reaching sexual maturity, will lay unfertilized eggs at set intervals depending on how they ovulate, and if it's mating season and a male happens to be around, on the eve of laying her egg, the male and female will touch cloacas in what's colloquially known as a 'kiss', and sperm + egg will meet and fertilize. If no male is around, then no embryo, will develop in the laid egg, and it'll eventually rot... hence why we have chicken eggs to consume.

hope that helps!

 

[Dismal purple]

What luck! I knew that, if I stayed on the escapist long enough, my studies to become an ornithologist would come in handy for a forum discussion. XD

So, as has been said before: depending on what you mean by 'pregnant', the answer has varying degrees of complexity, but regardless what you mean, the answer is basically still "no".

Now, I assume what you mean when you say "pregnant" is that you want to know if birds conceive internally. That is to say, that penetrative sex between a male and female takes place to fertilize the egg, which the female then lays so the embryo can develop.

Such a coupling is possible for some species of birds, though rare even in their cases, but for most species of birds this mammalian concept of intercourse can't take place for one very basic reason: In the majority of bird species, the males have testes, but no penis. Likewise, Female birds don't have an organ that can be said to equate to the mammalian vagina, but instead both males and females have a cloaca, a kind of dual-role anus/genital exitpoint

Rather, what tends to happen is that female birds, after reaching sexual maturity, will lay unfertilized eggs at set intervals depending on how they ovulate, and if it's mating season and a male happens to be around, on the eve of laying her egg, the male and female will touch cloacas in what's colloquially known as a 'kiss', and sperm + egg will meet and fertilize. If no male is around, then no embryo, will develop in the laid egg, and it'll eventually rot... hence why we have chicken eggs to consume.

hope that helps!

Thank you for this post. I thought the egg at least had to be fertilized before it grew. Do you know how the sperm gets past the hard shell?

 

[balladbird]

Thank you for this post. I thought the egg at least had to be fertilized before it grew. Do you know how the sperm gets past the hard shell?

It doesn't! The shell does not calcify around the embryon until just before the female expels it via her cloaca. At the point where the male releases his sperm, it would only have to pass through a thin membrane of fluids to fertilize the egg, not all that different from how it works for us mammals.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

What luck! I knew that, if I stayed on the escapist long enough, my studies to become an ornithologist would come in handy for a forum discussion. XD

So, as has been said before: depending on what you mean by 'pregnant', the answer has varying degrees of complexity, but regardless what you mean, the answer is basically still "no".

Now, I assume what you mean when you say "pregnant" is that you want to know if birds conceive internally. That is to say, that penetrative sex between a male and female takes place to fertilize the egg, which the female then lays so the embryo can develop.

Such a coupling is possible for some species of birds, though rare even in their cases, but for most species of birds this mammalian concept of intercourse can't take place for one very basic reason: In the majority of bird species, the males have testes, but no penis. Likewise, Female birds don't have an organ that can be said to equate to the mammalian vagina, but instead both males and females have a cloaca, a kind of dual-role anus/genital exitpoint

Rather, what tends to happen is that female birds, after reaching sexual maturity, will lay unfertilized eggs at set intervals depending on how they ovulate, and if it's mating season and a male happens to be around, on the eve of laying her egg, the male and female will touch cloacas in what's colloquially known as a 'kiss', and sperm + egg will meet and fertilize. If no male is around, then no embryo, will develop in the laid egg, and it'll eventually rot... hence why we have chicken eggs to consume.

hope that helps!

I appreciate your (as well as everyone else who has tried to help explain it) input! I had a basic understanding of what you explained, but I'm glad you were here to explain it in better detail.

 

[Glongpre]

Rather, what tends to happen is that female birds, after reaching sexual maturity, will lay unfertilized eggs at set intervals depending on how they ovulate, and if it's mating season and a male happens to be around, on the eve of laying her egg, the male and female will touch cloacas in what's colloquially known as a 'kiss', and sperm + egg will meet and fertilize. If no male is around, then no embryo, will develop in the laid egg, and it'll eventually rot... hence why we have chicken eggs to consume.

Huh, I always wondered how birds fertilized their eggs. I was going around with the impression that they somehow fertilized it after the female laid the egg. I learned something today!