unsure about my light Sussex’s gender

[JustAnotherWeirdo]

I will be referring to my chicken as “she“ during this but i don't actually know if she’s a hen.

I’ve had her for 8 months now (and she was at least 1 month old when I got her). She only started growing tail feathers at around 6 or 7 months of having her and they looked liked a hen’s tail feathers. Since then her comb and wattles have gotten much larger and she seems to have small and blunt spurs. I’ve never heard her crowing or actually seen her lay an egg but I have found the small brown egg (being compared to a medium size arucauna egg in the 3rd photo) and suspected it to be her first egg since it’s so small and all my bantams lay white and very light brown eggs so it didnt make sense for them to suddenly start laying a dark egg. This was also my only hen who hasn’t started laying at the time.


hopefully some one here can tell me what’s going on.

 

[NanaK]

That looks like a rooster. He has saddle feathers.

The black chicken in pic 2 looks like it has damage on it's back from a rooster.

 

[MysteryChicken]

That's 100% a cockerel.

 

[JustAnotherWeirdo]

That looks like a rooster. He has saddle feathers.

The black chicken in pic 2 looks like it has damage on it's back from a rooster.

the black chickens feathers have been like that for a while and I’ve seen them being pulled out by other hens weeks ago and i have a silkie rooster who used to pull them out too. I haven’t noticed the spots growing larger recently.

 

[fluffycrow]

Agreed, definitely cockerel

 

[NanaK]

the black chickens feathers have been like that for a while and I’ve seen them being pulled out by other hens weeks ago and i have a silkie rooster who used to pull them out too. I haven’t noticed the spots growing larger recently.

The bare spots are exactly where a rooster would stand while mating.

The hens may be pulling them also. Birds will often pull new feather growth.

 

[JustAnotherWeirdo]

He clearly has saddle feathers in these photos as well. Sometimes saddle feathers are harder to notice when they are the same shade as the body feathers. Maybe they were there all along and you just didn't notice?

Do you have other roosters?

Did you or a broody hatch him? Other roosters in the group he was raised with?

As for the dark brown egg, what other chickens do you have? Breeds?

He was hatched in an incubator by other people who gave him to me as a young chick since he wasn't doing well with them.

i had a new hampshire rooster before getting the sussex but the new hampshire was rehomed when i had the sussex for 3 months at most and he was staying inside the house for a lot of that time because it becoming winter and was too cold outside most of the time. And then i got 3 silkie roosters a few months ago (maybe 4) which i still have

And for other breeds of hens (not including my bantams) are 2 normal laying hens (the one lays large dark eggs) and the other used to lay light brown/cream eggs but she's quite old and i think she stopped laying. Then i have a leghorn and a crossbreed who both lay light eggs.

I am aware that Sussex chickens are supposed to lay light eggs so the small egg being from this chicken was unlikely but I've heard stories of people who have some that lay other coloured eggs. I've broken my brain trying to figure out who else could've layed that egg and the suusex was the only one who made sense.

And for some extra background about this chicken. The people i got this chicken from bought "bad hens" from somebody because the person could tell they didn't know much about chickens at the time and the person is known for selling people "bad" or old chickens if he sees you don't know a lot. So maybe one of those hens carry a gene for dark eggs.

My chicken is most likely just a really slow maturing rooster but them being a hermaphrodite is still a possibilty so I'll try to seperate the chicken for a few days and see if an egg appears.

 

[Emmaloveschickens9156]

That's a rooster. He's not going to be giving you an egg anytime at all.

Agree!

 

[JustAnotherWeirdo]

I agree that this chicken looks like a cockerel and has a bunch of the features but this all happened suddenly. below are photos of the chicken when he/she was probably around 6 or 7 months old and looked like a pullet. I know that it could take some chickens longer to mature but it’s strange that it took 8 or 9 months and the chicken still hasn’t started crowing or seen mating.

im looking for more of an explanation about why my chicken is growing like this or why I suddenly started getting 2 dark brown eggs when I only have 1 that lays dark eggs.

 

[thlayli]

Sussex don't lay dark brown eggs, they lay light tan eggs. That's a rooster. He's probably just very slow to mature. Some of the heritage dual purpose breeds can take a while. If you have another, older rooster than he probably isn't crowing because he's not allowed to. And you probably don't see him mate with the hens because he's either a good rooster that doesn't need to browbeat then into it and they readily submit, or the other rooster isn't letting him do that either.

If you think it's some sort of hermaphrodite, though, seperate it for a day in a dog crate and wait to see if he lays an egg.