New to BYC

brittyd

Hatching
Apr 23, 2016
4
0
9
Finleyville, PA
Hello, my name is Brittany and I have recently found this site. I am a new chicken mom and seem to end up at this amazing site every time I have run into issues. So I have three older RIR hens that I like to say I saved from auction and I have six 2-month old hens. I have no clue what type of chickens I have in the babies, tractor supply stated they were all Plymouth Barred Rocks but only one has turned out to be true. They were pullets and at least that was correct! If anyone could help me identify them that would be amazing!







 
Welcome to BYC!
Your back birds with the copper leakage (you have a nice spectrum of that) are black sex links -- these are a cross of a gold based cock bird (commonly RIR) over barred (commonly barred rock) hens - the nice thing about them is that males and females are different at hatch so they are easy to sex, pullets have a solid head and cockerels have a dot on the head. As they mature the pullets are black with copper leakage and cockerels are barred (the dot on the head is indicative of the barring gene - which is why you also see it on the heads of other barred breed chicks such as barred rocks).
You have one black pullet that does not appear to have any leakage - (3rd from the bottom) - is it just the photo or is she truly solid black in color?

As you move forward in your chicken adventure it can be helpful to take some time to become familiar with breeds you are interested in - learning what the characteristics you should see in chicks and adults, etc - this enables you to identify them yourself if/when you are in a situation where someone else has them mixed up.
 
There is two hens that have zero leakage. One has very little on the breast and as you saw they other two have a lot. When they were chicks I did much research and they all looked like they were barred rock chicks to me. Would the all black be Black Austrolorps? Also is it normal for the Black Sex Links to be so much larger than a Barred Rock of the same age?
 
See in the chick picture how there is only one that has the yellow "dot" on the top of it's head? That one is the barred rock and that dot is what I was referring to in regards to indicating the presence of the barring gene(s) and how you can see that the other chicks are not going to be barred birds as adults.
The solid birds may be black australorps, yes, as those tend to be very commonly available in the retail setting (farm store, etc). What color is the bottom of the feet on those birds?
As to the size disparity - it is not uncommon to note difference in growth rates between chicks, even of the same breed. As you have only the one barred rock it's hard to say if it is a breed difference or just a matter of her being a smaller/slower growing bird that would seem smaller even in comparison to others of her same breed. Where does your barred rock seem to fall in the pecking order? Do you have more than one feed/water station available to them to prevent domination by the larger birds- sometimes when a size disparity develops the larger birds can dominate resources like feed and water and this can make the disparity grow as time passes and the larger birds get more of the feed and the smaller birds less.
 
I am not very good at identifying chicken breeds but it looks like you already have plenty of help so I'll just say

welcome-byc.gif
 

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