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Hello! I'm not from PA, but I'm pretty close to the border in WNY, near Bradford. Hoping to network with some folks on the western side. Also, my husband is from Lancaster county and all his family still lives there. Whenever I come across a chicken I like from that area, I scheme about combining poultry fun with in-law visits. There seems to be an abundance of hatcheries and smaller breeders in the Lancaster area.
 
Sristi said:
Hello!  I'm not from PA, but I'm pretty close to the border in WNY, near Bradford.  Hoping to network with some folks on the western side.  Also, my husband is from Lancaster county and all his family still lives there.  Whenever I come across a chicken I like from that area, I scheme about combining poultry fun with in-law visits.  There seems to be an abundance of hatcheries and smaller breeders in the Lancaster area.
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Welcome from Cambria County (central PA)! There are a lot of people on here that live near Lancaster and trust me, if there's something you want, they can get it for you lol. I'm not sure about the north western area though.
 
I have seen you guys posting for years that a big white dot on a BR's head meant male. The first time Chad posted it, I had just gotten three BR. Two had a big dot. All three were girls. I have always wondered how.
 
MotorcycleChick said:
I have seen you guys posting for years that a big white dot on a BR's head meant male. The first time Chad posted it, I had just gotten three BR. Two had a big dot. All three were girls. I have always wondered how.
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I am hoping all 3 of mine turn out to be girls. they all have dots on theri heads...i'll try to get a picture of all 3 of them.
 
chiques chicks said:
OK, it's cold.
Finally got a reason to wear the high boots I got at the beginning of winter!
TGFFWD (thank God for four wheel drive) saves shoveling my drive, just busy through!

On a dad note, I had a dead SFH this morning, laying stiff in the snow, on top, no tracks. I think she froze. The other night she was not in the coop at 10pm in the rain, just wandering the run. That's life. Not sure, but she may have been my first one, so three or for years old, weather probably got to her. Her organs were gone, perhaps the others scavenged. Not sure.
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CC, sorry to hear about the loss of one of your older girls... it is frustrating when we are left to wonder what happened but like you said, sometimes that is life. Hopefully with the weather breaking soon all of the rest of our old girls will get some relief.
 
kada6305 said:
Our three BRs. all have spots...all males?!


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Usually the largest spots are males. I have an easier time telling when seeing them mixed together with boys and girls, then the difference is more apparent. Those spots all look pretty significant though, you may have to be culling some roosters in 15 or 16 weeks.
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MotorcycleChick said:
I have seen you guys posting for years that a big white dot on a BR's head meant male. The first time Chad posted it, I had just gotten three BR. Two had a big dot. All three were girls. I have always wondered how.
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The amount of white on barred breeds is not fixed (lot of variation), I've heard that some strains of BR can be color sexed at hatch, but for most I think it's unreliable. Once their wing feathers start growing in, that is a far better indication as the male's feathers have white stripes that are about twice as wide as the females. If you look at a whole group of straight-run chicks, the males pop out visually as much lighter in color. This effect starts in just a few days, but gets increasingly prominent as the wing feathers grow longer. At about 2 weeks, it's very obvious. Black barred chickens are not considered to be "auto sexing" because this effect is not reliable at hatch time, and also the effect is a matter of degree, unless you are very experienced, you need to compare a bunch of chicks and hope you can sort of the sexes.

As a rule this applies equally to any black barred chicken, so the same effect is seen on Dominiques, Barred Hollands, California Greys, and the various "cuckoo" colors like Marans.

Barred brown (with wild type down coloring, i.e. "chipmunk stripe" chicks) chickens are a mixed bag, if they have certain other genes, it hides the white spot on their head, but if those genes are not present, you get autosexing chicks, to various degrees. Examples of this are Rhodebars, Legbars, and Norwegion Jaehons (so I've read, never had these). In true autosexing breeds, anyone can see the difference, it's as if they are entirely different breeds, no comparison or "trained eye" is needed.
 

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