Hen acting like a rooster after scare

My blue cochin hen has started acting like a rooster after the flock had a hawk scare a week ago. A hawk caught and ate a dove 5 feet from the chicken pen. My girls were in no danger since their pen has a chainlink roof, but the scare seems to have made my blue think she needs to protect the other girls.

She keeps a watchful eye all the time now and even dominates the formerly dominant Rhode Island red. She's also started to make abbreviated crowing noises (sort of sounds like a rooster with a sore throat). Since I live right downtown, this isn't good. Leaving her in the coop until after 8 a.m. seemed to calm it down a bit, as did going out and standing with her for a while.

Prior to this, she was the least dominant and most friendly of the group (there are 7 hens - 3 Rhode Islands and 3 partridge cochins plus the blue). They are all getting close to 6 months old and have not started laying yet.

I'm pretty sure she's not a male, but I'm new to the whole chicken thing so I'm not positive. (I hope she's a hen, since she's my favorite!) I've attached a photo of her eating oat grass.

Any help with what I should do to get her back to "normal" would be so helpful!

Can we get a profile picture? I'm thinking I'm seeing male feathering, but need a better angle.

Here are a couple of photos. If she's a he, I'm going to have to find a new home for him/her. I'll also be really sad, since this one is my favorite!

Thanks in advance for any info.

Point of lay pullet. Are you sure it wasn't an egg song you heard? They'll start making the sounds a week or so before they lay sometimes. One of my pullets started up a laying song last week and still doesn't have a fully red comb.

Yay! She's a girl! lol

She hasn't started laying yet, but we've been watching for eggs. All 7 of the girls were acquired at the same time, though I've heard that the partridge girls might be a little slow to mature (don't know if this is true or not).

So, this might just be her prep song or is it more that she got tired of the Rhode Island bossing her around? Her comb has been red for about 3 weeks and she's been an eating machine for about the same amount of time. Should I do anything specific to help her along and hopefully discourage her rooster-like song. (We're in the middle of the big October fest thing we have here in town and I really don't want her calling attention to herself!)

Thanks so much for responding so quickly. I'm totally relieved that she's still a she!

If she's practicing her egg song she won't stop. some girls sing a little , some a lot. Normally after she get's the laying thing down she'll only sing after she lays not all day. at least it's no louder than a barking dog and often not as loud and in the daytime so quite often the noise will blend in with other sounds of the city.

I hope so. She sounds like a rooster with a sore throat and it is loud enough I can hear her when I'm inside. Hopefully she'll get it figured out quickly - the city fire department is across the street and they might decide to turn her in if she wakes them up enough times! lol I hope all seven of them don't do the same thing!

Thank you so much for the information. I'm sort of learning as I go with the chickies.

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure that's a cockerel. How much can you narrow the age down? If it's the same age as those hens in the pics, it's definitely a cockerel.

you might want to post on the What Breed or Gender forum to get more responses.

Okay, now I'm confused. One of you says girl and one boy. I've had her for close to 6 months she is a blue cochin. I'm not sure of the exact age, since she was purchased from a farm in Idaho and shipped here with the others. I don't know that they are all exactly the same age.