Sparrows are indeed a very fertile animal, generally sparrows can reproduce at least twice a year, and more can reproduce 4 times a year. The average number of eggs laid at a time is around 4-8, and the female takes turns to hatch. The incubation period is about 11-14 days, and the hatched birds can fly on their own to feed in half a month.
And these hatched birds generally mature in half a year, so as to have the ability to reproduce. It can be seen that the reproductive ability of sparrows is indeed very strong. However, although the sparrow is small and has strong reproductive ability, it is also a bird with a high mortality rate.
A small introduction to sparrows
Talking about sparrows, many people will not have a good impression of them, especially farmers are more disgusted with this kind of bird, and even many people say that it is a "pest bird".
This is because sparrows are omnivorous birds, and their food sources are very wide, mainly feeding on grass seeds in summer and autumn, but including food grown by many farmers. In addition, sparrows often appear in groups, and they have the habit of not being afraid of people, and they go in groups to steal the crops planted by farmers, dry food, etc., which will naturally attract the disgust of farmers.
It is also because of this habit of sparrows that they have also attracted "disaster" for sparrows before. It was the "elimination of the four evils" movement that was launched in the last century, and the sparrow was among them. Sparrows are being caught in cities and villages across the country, resulting in large numbers of sparrows being captured. Statistics show that in just one year, nearly 2 billion sparrows have been eradicated across the country.
However, there are fewer sparrows, and the production of grain not only does not increase, but also decreases. After understanding, I realized that it was because there were fewer sparrows. Because sparrows not only steal farmers' food, but also eat a variety of insects that harm grasses. With fewer sparrows, there are more pests, and natural crop yields are lower.
It was also due to the realization of the importance of sparrows that the number of sparrows on the mainland had greatly decreased, and millions of sparrows had to be imported from the Soviet Union. Some people say that the current sparrow is very different from the previous one, and this is the reason.
In the past, the mainland was basically a domestic sparrow, and the tree sparrow imported from the Soviet Union, they are different species of sparrows, without reproductive isolation, after hybridization, they got the now common sparrows.
Sparrows are highly reproductive, but also have a high mortality rate
Judging from the habit that sparrows often appear in groups, sparrows are indeed a bird with strong reproductive ability. However, because of different breeds and different environments in which they live, their breeding frequency and frequency are also different.
Like the southern regions of the mainland, most sparrows can reproduce more than 2 times a year, and some can reproduce more than 3 times. In the southerly part, because of the warm winter, it is even possible to breed all year round, so that it can breed 4 times a year.
However, in the north, the winter is too cold and long, and the number of sparrow breeding is significantly less, for example, in the northeast region with higher latitudes, sparrows can only breed once a year, and there are also many sparrows distributed in high-altitude Tibet, and local sparrows are also bred once a year.
Sparrows not only reproduce a lot of times, but they also lay a lot of eggs each time, 4-8 eggs at a time. And the incubation time is not long, about 11-14 days to hatch. And the success rate of hatching of these sparrows is also relatively high.
At the same time, the baby sparrow hatched can continue to reproduce after 6 months. So it is also a fact that sparrows have a strong reproductive ability. If there is enough food in a place, sparrows can quickly multiply in large numbers.
However, the mortality rate of sparrows is also relatively high, because there are many natural enemies of sparrows in the wild. For example, there will be various carnivorous eagles in the air to prey on them, and when underground, there are various poisonous snakes, and even many wild cats will prey on sparrows.
In addition, in nature, because sparrows love to eat food, farmers will use some pesticides to mix seeds, or spray some pesticides, herbicides, and sparrows eat these poisonous foods are also easy to die. In addition, some will get sick and die.
Foreign researchers have calculated that more than 9,100 of the average 10,000 sparrow eggs can hatch, and less than 500 can really live for more than two years, which shows that the mortality rate of sparrows is indeed very high.
Write on the back
Only some people have been angry that the number of sparrows, why protect animals? They often steal food, is there a need for protection?
In fact, this is because they do not know about sparrows, although sparrows love to steal food grown by farmers, but they are an omnivorous animal, they generally fly to the farmland in groups to steal food crops when the grains are ripe in summer and autumn, but they mainly eat insects during the breeding season, and also use insects to brood, and most of these insects are agricultural pests.
A lesson should be learned from the previous large-scale killing of sparrows, although sparrows steal food, but they are really not possible without their existence in nature, because it is also an important role in maintaining ecological balance.