Well, I *thought* she was a she... now I'm not so sure!

nearlyalegume

In the Brooder
Nov 17, 2015
8
0
20
Victoria, Australia
Hello :) I'm new here, and new to keeping chickens as well. I have a dear little lady who might be a dear little gentlemen, and I was wondering if you could help me work out which!

My son's kinder has a hatching program every year, after which the families can adopt the chicks. We had been talking about keeping chickens for some time, and so this year, we took four home. They were all born sometime between August 3 and August 10, which makes them 14-15 weeks old. We also got two sexed chicks from a local farmer who are a week to two weeks younger.

Well, wouldn't you know it, three out of the four turned out to be male! We aren't allowed roosters here, so two went to the chicken farmer who rehomes roosters as best he's able, and the third went to my work to live in the Horticulture garden (I'm a teacher). That was three weeks ago, and left us with three chickens.

This afternoon I went out to check their food and water and it occurred to me that the fourth chicken that we got from the hatching program, the one I dubbed Caramel Crown because as a chick, she was yellow with brown smudges on either side of her face, is looking a lot... dudeier? than her two roomies all of a sudden. Her comb and wattle are much bigger and redder than those of the other two. She's 'top chook', and by far our most vocal - she doesn't crow, but she has a brrrrruuuuck brrrruuuuck of magnificent magnitude and she's a chatterbox. She's a tad older than the other two and a different breed (we're told that Caramel Crown is a Lohman (sp?) and that Cookie and Chai, our other two, are mixed breed Isa Brown/Australorp/Leghorn crosses), but I have to admit that I'm a bit worried that she's going to bloke out on us and we're going to have to rehome her too :(

What do you think? Apologies for the lousy pictures, I was trying to snap them quickly on my phone before the kids starting brawling. Thanks for your input!









 
It's a pullet starting to mature and approach point of lay.

I agree - no saddle feathers or pointed hackle feathers and it looks "rounder" - a male would be a little more "streamlined" and for sure would be crowing by now.

CT
 
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Definitely female, and looks like eggs aren't too far away. I've had a red sex link (which is what Lohmann browns are) lay as early as 16 weeks.
 
Oh wonderful, thank you so much :) Thrilled that she is definitely a she and that she's definitely a keeper! She sure does have a big personality and she's such a friendly wee chookie. Hopefully she'll give us some yummy eggs in the not too distant future!
 

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