100% cockerel? 3 month old GLW

[LisaChick1]

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And 2 more, let me know if you can tell! Thanks guys

 

[speckledhen]

oops, again. Stupid glitches.

 

[speckledhen]

I think counting weeks is a much more accurate determinant than counting months.

Absolutely! Then, this bird is about 13 weeks old, if she got them about May 31 as day olds. I'd say it's a cockerel, except that Wyandotte males have more gold in the hackles and saddles when those come in. It's colored more like a pullet, but that comb!. I had a single combed Wyandotte and even as an adult, her comb was never this large. Coloring says pullet, comb says cockerel. Also, those legs are pretty long and big for a pullet, IMO. So, I didn't help any, LOL.

Hey, CC, those Mediterranean combs are in a class by themselves, for sure

 

[LisaChick1]

That was what got me!!! The lacing. I don't see any solid patching and it wasn't fuzzy as a chick for long. It feathered in quickly and beautifully..... Hmmm

 

[speckledhen]

If I had to choose, was forced to make a call, going on the stance, legs, comb size, I'd call male. The color is not what you'd expect for a GLW male, too laced, not enough solid gold in hackles/saddles. It's very odd, this bird! Stupid hatchery birds, LOL. They muddy the waters too much. I love GLWs, had a hen, she died of egg yolk peritonitis at over a year old, gone the way of all my hatchery Wyandottes. Won't have them again.


I hope it's just a pullet with an unusually large comb for her age. the more I look at it, the more confused I get, LOL

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I'm leaning more male too but we'll see when the tail develops. (and the crowing/mounting)

 

[speckledhen]

I'm leaning more male too but we'll see when the tail develops. (and the crowing/mounting)

Exactamundo! The old fashioned sexing method that always works, the 'Wait and See Method'.

 

[WyandotteIndeed]

So, that is not a pure wyandotte. I don't see any secondary sex characteristics that scream cockerel at 12-14 weeks either. Here is someone else's young boy with nice red comb/waddles (although still small-ish) and long pointy hackle and saddle feathers of breed-type contrasting color, and already developing green/black sickle feathers in the tail. Yours honestly looks more like a pullet, just the wrong body type, comb and waddles for a wyandotte. She has nice lacing, but I would guess that there is some leghorn blood running pretty strong there.

 

[speckledhen]

@WyndotteIndeed, I would say there may be something else in that line. It should have gold hackles and saddles to go with that big cockerel's comb, not the pullet coloring. It may be some gold laced something else, but with hatchery stock, you sometimes get what I call the Forrest Gump special. Just too long legged and lanky for a true Wyandotte type, I agree. My Wyandottes were very round and much shorter legged than this one, both the SLW and the GLW.


Lisa, please let us know what happens with this one. I'm intrigued now.

 

[WyandotteIndeed]

You're right speckledhen. Can't be too sure from hatcheries' stock. Its gold-laced, and its a chicken, and it looks like a cockerel, but trying to be logical based on my experience with quality breeders' stock is probably not helpful in this case. If that chicken hatched from my birds, it would have been a cull, and if it happened more than once, its parents would likely have been culled as well. That being said, there is nothing wrong with hatchery birds if you just want egg-layers. I just get irritated when they are advertised as a particular breed, and folks new to chickens order expecting something of quality and get something completely different. Several 4-H kids in my community ordered birds from a hatchery for fair, only to be humiliated when they got there and every bird was DQ'd. Sad.

I am still very curious to see what this guy turns into in the next month or so though.