If you go to the McMurray hatchery site, and look thru the breeds, there will be photos of chicks of the breeds they sell. You might be able to identify them there. As noted, they are almost 100% likely to be males unless their sexers made a mistake, and if they are a sex-linked breed...
Sorry, I'm 98% certain that's a cockerel. As previous poster noted = it would be "rare and exotic" for them to send you a female "rare and exotic" - that's one way they use up their excess males. Has anyone ever gotten a pullet "rare and exotic" freebee from McMurray? Not to dis them... But...
I, too, think they look like girls, and females WILL jockey for position (you know, the PECKING order?) confronting one another and fluffing out their neck feathers much the same as cockerels do - for a little bit. Usually no damage done, but the boss-lady emerges. If there are no roosters in...
Depending on the breed you have, you may not need to do this at all for a 6 foot fence. Some breeds are more inclined to fly - the lighter "flightier" ones" - and some rarely do. Of our 2 dozen birds, only one or two of my EE's have ever flown out of our 6 foot woven wire fence. I would wait...
I tried pine tar (and everything else I could think of or heard about) on my little Polish roo when I had this problem. I'm sorry to report that nothing helped - they pecked his head bloody. I finally pulled what was left of his crest up into a little topnot and secured it with a tiny rubber...
In my experience, once the first year pullets start laying in the fall, they lay pretty well thru that winter without light supplementation. It's the following year, when they often go thru a long molt in late summer and fall that they can really slow down or stop laying. I don't supplement...
It depends on the breed, some are slower maturing than others (big breeds: Brahmas for instance, or Jerseys) but most standard sized breeds start showing interest and working on it by 4-5 months (also crowing a lot, doing little dances for the hens, etc., very cute). Some are precocious and get...
I guess I would be a little disappointed to receive non-fertile eggs, if they were sold as hatching eggs. But wouldn't it be hard to know that unless you sacrificed a few to check? If they were too damaged in transit, candling wouldn't tell you much, would it? (I've never ordered hatching...
I am also very allergic to hay; a "hay allergy" is actually an allergy to the grass pollen in the hay when it is baled while the grass is flowering (early summer), but we have horses so have had to find a way around that. I've found that 2nd or 3rd cutting hay, at least here in Colorado, has...
Yes, but IF you decide (and you will!) to give them some other treats, say crickets, or grapes, or spinach, or let them out in the grass, you can just use coarse, clean sand in a little dish or sprinkled around, or "parakeet grit": available in pet stores, or you can order "chick grit" from...
I have long ventilation gap- screened and covered with hardware cloth - at the top of both the north and south walls of my 8'x14' coop, extending the length of both walls. I can close off the north vents in the winter, but never close the ones on the south (which is the higher wall, the roof...
I wouldn't worry about the glue, you're talking about the inside walls, right? Whatever you can find that is the cheapest should work, we used OSB, painted with leftover/recycled gloss latex for easy cleaning. You don't want exposed insulation, but my neighbor covered her insulation with heavy...
It would be pretty optimistic to think that you could remove a hen from her home and "family" (her flock), put her in an entirely new environment with new individuals, social structure, routine, etc., and that she would be confident and relaxed enough to attempt to hatch out some chicks. She...
My broody this year would not get off the nest on her own, unlike most of the ones I've had before that would get up and eat and drink a little, take a quick dust bath and a big poop, and then go back in (I would let them out early in the am before I let the rest of the flock into the run)...
Yes, I actually added three 10-day-old chicks to my broody's 6 chicks when those chicks were 3 or 4 days old. My broody took them right in, taught them a few things right off the bat ("do NOT peck at my eyes!") and took good care of them, along with her little ones. This I was a little...
I had a similar situation last year, but with two young roosters (about the same age as yours) and my favorite (read: most friendly, docile, but way down in the pecking order) buff orpington hen. They picked on her constantly, bloodied her comb, tore out feathers until she wouldn't go into the...
I have hardware cloth secured with washers and screws thru wood strips covering the window openings. I leave the windows open 24/7 all summer. There is also a high ventilation opening on the north side of the coop, so good circulation in the coop all night. The nights here are pretty cool...
Are you putting them on Craig's List for free? Because it's pretty hard to find someone who will pay for a rooster, but I've had luck if I'm giving them away. HOWEVER: consider, if you care about your little guys, what their outlook is if you send them off with whoever will take them. I've...