5 Barred Rocks and Marshmallow 3.5 weeks old, what will they be... he or she?

[VaMamaHen]

These are my 1.5 week babies we normally adopt reds but we decided to try something new this time. We have 5 BRs and one I'm not sure of. It doesn't look like the red chick's we've had previously. I'm pretty sure one of my BRs with the pretty face markings is a roo. He's way bigger than the rest and seems to have some pretty strong barring so far. Any guesses on the rest? And what my small bronze baby is?

 

[chickenmole]

I have had a whole lot of barred rocks, and Hulk and Pretty Eyes are almost definitely little boys. I always compare their legs, my cockerels always have sturdier legs even before the barring difference becomes really apparent. They're beautiful. One of my favorite breeds

 

[Chicken Girl1]

Hulk, Watermelon, and Pretty Eyes look like cockerels .

 

[raisingdaisies]

Unfortunately, I agree, looks like you have 3 cockerels. The barring is really coming in white on them

 

[ftfarmer22]

All except the last 3 are roosters.

 

[Chicken Girl1]

from a fellow Virginian!

I would say your bronze chick is probably either a (bad quality) RIR, a Production Red, or a Red sex-link. They are to young to guess for sure but I think Barred #1 and #2 maybe cockerels.

 

[VaMamaHen]

Hello fellow Virginian! The bronze was last of the batch of straight runs unknown breed. Hopefully he or she will catch up in size with the other ones. Yea I'm starting to think I may have 2 roos the more I look at them. We've never owned a roo so it will be a new experience

 

[BantamLover21]

The bronze one is probably a Production Red.

 

[VaMamaHen]

Do you know if the feathers on him/her are supposed to be that thin? Previous post said possibly a bad quality RIR. My concern after thinking about it is that he/she may have some issues as it grows if it is bad quality. We will keep him/her either way.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I'm seeing a Production Red and Barred Rocks...nothing screaming roo at this point...comb is the best indicator for hatchery Barreds until they feather in enough that the double barring is more clear on the males (and even then it can be hard to look at a single bird and decide if that is white on black or black on white).

Your red bird looks fine. It is simply half down and some feathers. It should fill in with time. Some feather more slowly is all (often males but not always). If you notice a difference in size and growth from the others of that batch, it is possible this one has failure to thrive which may mean something is amiss. Watch and wait. If it looks unhealthy, isolate and treat as needed. (You can get a lot of information from the disease thread on BYC).

My thoughts
LofMc