Hi Alan
In the majority of birds one egg is laid a day during the laying period.
The egg has to be fertilised after release from the ovary but before it
has the outer layers of albumen, shell membranes and shell added to it.
This means that it is fertilised soon after ovulation, when it is in the
infundibulum,
and about 24 hours later after passage down the oviduct, it is laid,
the next one is ovulated, fertilised and so on.
After a mating, fertile sperm can be stored in the oviduct for at least a
couple
of weeks, after that fertility of the eggs tends to decline.
Most research has been done in the domestic fowl, which lays one egg a day
as described above.
The intervals between laying are approximately one day in many birds but
they are 44-46 hours in domestic pigeon, average of 40 hours for
Black-headed Gull,
2 days for raven, ostrich and rhea, 3 days for cassowaries, 4-5 days in
Andean Condor
6-7 days for Masked Booby and as long as 44 days in Brown Kiwi.
In these cases with longer laying intervals I don't know how long it takes
for the
egg to pass down the oviduct - perhaps still only one day - perhaps longer?
Cheers
Peter
At 07:59 PM 24/11/2003 +1000, you wrote:
Greetings,
Could one of you very knowledgeable people out there please tell me the
time it takes between fertilization and the laying of eggs in two or three
representative bird species.
Regards,
Alan
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