Well, I'm pretty sure I already know the answers... But I'd like to be sure, and if nothing else, the story to this point has been interesting.
We're new to chickens and have been learning as we go. We started off with 13 pullets of various breeds and two straight run bantams all as days old chicks. Our littlest bantam (OEGB) turned out to be a roo which we found hilarious. Then the other bantam (brahma) also stared crowing and caught us a bit off guard. None the less, we had two bantams learning to crow, acting like roos(ish) at about 8 weeks. Came home one day and found OEGB roo dead. Didn't know if it was one of our dogs, a neighborhood dog, some other predator, etc... Two days later the other roo showed up dead. However all our pullets were still totally comfortable walking amongst the dogs like they weren't scared at all (our dogs were introduced to the birds very early on and don't show any traits of a high prey drive). So we've been rather confused for the past few weeks.
Until this morning when we were sure we just heard a crow (none of our close neighbors have chickens). So that got me researching traits of roosters in different breeds. The bantams had been easy because they had obvious pointy straight combs. However, a couple of our bigger "pullets" did seem to have much redder features than their counterparts, though no pointy combs like I was thinking (again, newbie). So here's the deal; I'm thinking one of our SLWs and one of our Light Brahmas are actually roos. This could obviously explain the other dead roos. Interesting that neither one has uttered a peep of a crow until now, but they're currently 12 weeks old or so...
I'm sure this will be glaringly obvious to those of you who have seen all the other comb styles
This is Judith (which I'm thinking is going to end up Jude), a Light Brahama
Here are our two SLWs, Vicky (going to be Vic I'm assuming) and Helen
Same two but with our other Light Brahma, Karen who I'm pretty sure is still a lady
Closer of Vic
The two what I'm now assuming are boys; Vic and Jude
So what say y'all? Can I safely assume our 13 pullets are now 11 and 2 roos?
We're new to chickens and have been learning as we go. We started off with 13 pullets of various breeds and two straight run bantams all as days old chicks. Our littlest bantam (OEGB) turned out to be a roo which we found hilarious. Then the other bantam (brahma) also stared crowing and caught us a bit off guard. None the less, we had two bantams learning to crow, acting like roos(ish) at about 8 weeks. Came home one day and found OEGB roo dead. Didn't know if it was one of our dogs, a neighborhood dog, some other predator, etc... Two days later the other roo showed up dead. However all our pullets were still totally comfortable walking amongst the dogs like they weren't scared at all (our dogs were introduced to the birds very early on and don't show any traits of a high prey drive). So we've been rather confused for the past few weeks.
Until this morning when we were sure we just heard a crow (none of our close neighbors have chickens). So that got me researching traits of roosters in different breeds. The bantams had been easy because they had obvious pointy straight combs. However, a couple of our bigger "pullets" did seem to have much redder features than their counterparts, though no pointy combs like I was thinking (again, newbie). So here's the deal; I'm thinking one of our SLWs and one of our Light Brahmas are actually roos. This could obviously explain the other dead roos. Interesting that neither one has uttered a peep of a crow until now, but they're currently 12 weeks old or so...
I'm sure this will be glaringly obvious to those of you who have seen all the other comb styles
This is Judith (which I'm thinking is going to end up Jude), a Light Brahama
Here are our two SLWs, Vicky (going to be Vic I'm assuming) and Helen
Same two but with our other Light Brahma, Karen who I'm pretty sure is still a lady
Closer of Vic
The two what I'm now assuming are boys; Vic and Jude
So what say y'all? Can I safely assume our 13 pullets are now 11 and 2 roos?