Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Chickielady]

Thanks for your input

I'll try to catch them later to look closer for signs of being male. So far, the three chickens are all the same size. The suspected roo seems a little more dense, if that makes sense. Slightly thicker legs but not tree trunks. HUGE comb and wattles but I read somewhere that comb size is the worst physical sex predictor because there is so much variation between individuals. My barred rock also has an enormous floppy comb but has laid 4 eggs in 5 days, so no question about her! I thought the first one looked fertilized but none of the other's have, so I think my eyes played a trick on me the first time. Dang androgynous birds. I am really hoping Buffy is a girl but I will not be shocked whatsoever if she turns out to be a rooster. The tail could go either way for me at this point but looks pretty masculine today. Of course, so do the others'. So really I am just as stumped as I was a month ago

You do know what male feathers look like, right ?
It is called 'hackle' and only males have it.
In a male chick there may be alot of bald spots as they fledge slower than females do...but, then hackle emerges, and it is long straight silky feathers that form from the neck (cape) and the back in front of the tail (saddle)
A few cocks for you to see:
Partridge Chantecler: Look at the long hackle on his 'saddle' and neck 'cape'

Super Crele Chantecler, The long stringy shiney glossy feathers on the neck & saddle is what you are looking for, and they come in a 2-3 mo old cockerel as sharp tiny feathers, unmistakable.




Glossy gold saddle~


Blue Ameracauna Cock with darker neck cape & saddle hackle~


Jersey Giant Cockerel, 5 mo old, with glossy black saddle & neck cape hackle:


Buster, with his long streaked & barred neck and saddle hackle:


Black Java Cock, (seen below) glossy beetle green neck cape & saddle hackle...You will notice after a while of poultry raising, that cocks of different breeds have different shaped hackle, seen closely, the Java Cock has wedged-shaped pointy hackle, not all do, as the Cock above has straight striped hackle, not a wedge, and
the Buckeye is a good example, seen below is a 4- mo old cockerel, notice the saddle hackle on him is slender, not wedge shaped as in a Java Cock.




Below, you will see a pullet the exact same age as the cockerel shown above.
Her neck feathers are broader & rounded, same on her saddle~~~~~~~~~~





Here again is a Cock, and notice his lovely long straight neck cape feathers !
The pullet above has none such.


Gorgeous Buckeye Cock, note all neck cape and saddle hackle.


OK and now hens & Cock together, see the difference ? Besides the saddles I sewed for them ?


Black Java Cock, has the wedged shaped hackle, not long straight skinny hackle like other breeds. Look close and see the hackle on the Java is piramid shaped, not long & skinny !
Look closely at the Cock's feathers on all parts of his body.




**********************Pick up your suspected chick, and DIG around it's back, saddle area, and neck cape area & look for emerging sprigs (almost cactus like) hackle feathers.....Other than that, your males will always be more aggressive, and to the extent of the beloved "sock test" which I guess you can do on older birds, but it is so much fun to do with baby chicks..............Get a balled up sock, and while the chicks are in the brooder (unknowing) you toss the sock across their "ceiling"..........what happens is the males stand tall & some will even attack the sock, and the pullets will freak & hide.

Seriously !

 

[Flaming Chicken]

This is a story of a pullet. This is Lola She's a feisty girl and loves her food. She loves being in the front yard more than in the backyard run. She would lay in the nest box but no egg. She tired and practiced for weeks. We encouraged her and so did the other pullets by signing the egg song. Even Mr. Rooster helped out by singing the egg song along with them. Finally after weeks of practice we found It was a small egg but it was perfect. The shell wasn't to thick or to thin. Just really a perfect little egg. We were all so proud of her and waiting for the next egg. I even posted on the egg song thread all about her first egg! She was very sporadic about her laying though. We would find maybe one egg a week from her while the others were laying every day. Lola has a thing for our shed in the front yard. It is were we store bales of staw and alpha. Today we could not find her in the back run so we checked the shed. There she was We tried to move her off the nest but she pecked us and no amount of treats would make her budge. So we left her to her egg laying business (we hoped) and checked back in a couple of hours. This is what we found She's been holding out on us! Sneaky girl ETA I'm starting to wonder if she has told the other girls about her hiding spot and how the heck did we end up with pink tinged eggs?

I suspect that Lola had help. You have eggs of more than one color. Sneaky!

 

[Rainier]

I suspect that Lola had help. You have eggs of more than one color. Sneaky!

All this time we thought we only had two pullets laying. The darker one is being laid by one of the mutt's, we think Lola is laying the smaller light brown ones and for the other colors

 

[Rainier]

for comparison these are the eggs that are being laid in the nesting boxes and are from last week.

 

[AliceSaurus]

Thanks so much for your detailed reply! I am aware of what hackle, cape, saddle, and sickle feathers look like on a fully grown rooster but am clueless as to WHEN I can spot them - without question - on a growing chicken. Mine will be 22 weeks tomorrow so is it safe to say that the unmistakably macho feathers would be in already? I looked very hard for emerging saddle feathers yesterday and found nothing, just aggravated the bird, lol. It is not aggressive and actually gets picked on a bit by the dominant barred rock hen. It wants to follow me around but is very standoffish, hates being touched. The tail is starting to look quite rooster-y too. None of its feathers are pointy and flowing gracefully but they are longer and more golden than the other buff I have. One thing that I wonder about is whether an injury as a juvenile could have affected the behavior. It was crushed in an accident 4 months ago and broke a leg, injured its body but not irreparably so. It was separated from the others for about 6 weeks until it could walk without limping again. It was slow going reintroducing it and the two girls weren't always kind. I have never once seen the bird in question behave in a classically rooster way, but then I get online and read about late developing roosters, early developing hens, hermaphrodites, hens that crow, roosters who are submissive.... I just need to stay away from Google and wait and see if the darn thing crows, lol.

Photos for good measure

...and here's my barred rock hen just because I love her

Pardon the messy run :/ I bought a new rake today and got a lot of the old poop and feathers out. I didn't realize how much they poop!

 

[Hinotori]

This is a story of a pullet.

This is Lola

We tried to move her off the nest but she pecked us and no amount of treats would make her budge. So we left her to her egg laying business (we hoped) and checked back in a couple of hours.
This is what we found


She's been holding out on us! Sneaky girl

ETA
I'm starting to wonder if she has told the other girls about her hiding spot and how the heck did we end up with pink tinged eggs?

That is a bunch of sneaky little girls!

 

[Hinotori]

Thanks so much for your detailed reply! I am aware of what hackle, cape, saddle, and sickle feathers look like on a fully grown rooster but am clueless as to WHEN I can spot them - without question - on a growing chicken. Mine will be 22 weeks tomorrow so is it safe to say that the unmistakably macho feathers would be in already? I looked very hard for emerging saddle feathers yesterday and found nothing, just aggravated the bird, lol. It is not aggressive and actually gets picked on a bit by the dominant barred rock hen. It wants to follow me around but is very standoffish, hates being touched. The tail is starting to look quite rooster-y too. None of its feathers are pointy and flowing gracefully but they are longer and more golden than the other buff I have. One thing that I wonder about is whether an injury as a juvenile could have affected the behavior. It was crushed in an accident 4 months ago and broke a leg, injured its body but not irreparably so. It was separated from the others for about 6 weeks until it could walk without limping again. It was slow going reintroducing it and the two girls weren't always kind. I have never once seen the bird in question behave in a classically rooster way, but then I get online and read about late developing roosters, early developing hens, hermaphrodites, hens that crow, roosters who are submissive.... I just need to stay away from Google and wait and see if the darn thing crows, lol.

Photos for good measure

...and here's my barred rock hen just because I love her

Pardon the messy run

I bought a new rake today and got a lot of the old poop and feathers out. I didn't realize how much they poop!

I think it's a pullet. One of my New Hampshires got in a HUGE comb and wattle set. I think even bigger than yours above. She's still bigger than the other two who are laying as well. They are catching up a little bit each day, though. I just got the first eggs from them on Thursday. Waiting on the 4th one, but her comb is still pretty small and pink.

 

[AliceSaurus]

I sure hope you're correct! I didn't expect the chickens to grow on me as much as they have. It would be a shame to have to part with one so soon, especially when it has been such a good bird that I nursed back to health.

 

[KendyF]

Thanks so much for your detailed reply! I am aware of what hackle, cape, saddle, and sickle feathers look like on a fully grown rooster but am clueless as to WHEN I can spot them - without question - on a growing chicken. Mine will be 22 weeks tomorrow so is it safe to say that the unmistakably macho feathers would be in already? I looked very hard for emerging saddle feathers yesterday and found nothing, just aggravated the bird, lol. It is not aggressive and actually gets picked on a bit by the dominant barred rock hen. It wants to follow me around but is very standoffish, hates being touched. The tail is starting to look quite rooster-y too. None of its feathers are pointy and flowing gracefully but they are longer and more golden than the other buff I have. One thing that I wonder about is whether an injury as a juvenile could have affected the behavior. It was crushed in an accident 4 months ago and broke a leg, injured its body but not irreparably so. It was separated from the others for about 6 weeks until it could walk without limping again. It was slow going reintroducing it and the two girls weren't always kind. I have never once seen the bird in question behave in a classically rooster way, but then I get online and read about late developing roosters, early developing hens, hermaphrodites, hens that crow, roosters who are submissive.... I just need to stay away from Google and wait and see if the darn thing crows, lol.

Photos for good measure

...and here's my barred rock hen just because I love her

Pardon the messy run

I bought a new rake today and got a lot of the old poop and feathers out. I didn't realize how much they poop!

He looks like a rooster to me. Look at his neck feathers. Just my (often wrong) guess.

 

[Chicksahoyfarm]

At 22 weeks I am going with pullet as I so absolutely no hint of sickles. My BO roo started to attempt to crow at 8 weeks and by 10 was clearly a roo as he had sickle feathers starting. Also I see no spur growth my roo had huge spurs around the age yours is.