8-week Easter Egger "pullet" - is it actually? *Updated 10-week pics pg 3 - Boy or girl?*

[spikennipper]

I'm leaning more towards a boy at this stage too, though I have never kept this breed, the redness in the comb at 8 weeks is slightly worrying and the body stance with the thickish legs look rooster like, I do hope I'm wrong!

 

[wordgirl]

Alright, two week update!

This chicken is hilarious. We're thinking about calling him/her Sneaky. He/she will HIDE under the other chickens so we can't catch him/her or take a picture. Two or three times he/she bolted out of my arms while we were taking close-ups and raced back to the pen. And when we tried to corner him/her in the pen to get some full-body shots, he/she would run INTO my hand blocking the way, even when I pushed him/her back several times, just to get away. It was amusing to try to get pictures, to say the least.

Here is our little no-paparazzi Easter Egger! What do you think now? Boy or girl?

Comb




8-week to 10-week Comb Comparison:





Side view of comb and head




Back

Tail Close-up



Some body shots

 

[wordgirl]

What do you all think?

 

[Allieharmon]

I probably shouldn't be posting as I am new to chickens this year, but your Sneaky looks a bit like my EE roosters :-( That tail in the second to last pic and the redness in the comb match my roosters. My EE hen has no redness whatsoever in her comb despite being the same age. My roos have had red combs for weeks. I would be happy to be wrong! Would love to know what everyone else thinks.
allie

 

[wordgirl]

Hi Allie! Thanks for your help! I see what you mean about the tail and the comb - those are what worry me.

I have two other Easter Eggers, both of which have much lighter combs. And the tail is quite roo-ish.

However, I'm still confused about this one because although its comb is red, it is not very big, despite being 10 weeks old (although a few EE roos are like that, I think). It also doesn't look like it's getting the pointy saddle feathers like my other roo (they don't poke out yet, but under the feathers you can see them coming in on my for-sure cockerel). And also, its coloring is very even for a cockerel, and there is no red in it at all, which is very common in black-and-white EE roos. But that comb and tail still make me think that it's probably a cockerel.

Anyone else want to chime in?

 

[Pele]

I still say her feather pattern is all female. It IS possible that you have a roo that is somewhat of a mutant, but that would be a genetic rarity. It's far far more likely that you have an early developing girl. Those happen fairly frequently.

 

[my sunwolf]

I've heard that red can still creep into a black and white EE even after 10 weeks, but that it's rare. This chicken is really interesting! My instincts still say cockerel, but that coloring flows so nicely down the body, and those saddles feathers don't look pointed.

 

[thomaschickens]

Wow...I have been following this thinking that the updated pictures would really show us one way or the other! Well, I still have absolutely NO idea

Feather pattern still says pullet. Comb and posture say roo. Tail feathers are just weird and don't really point to either lol! If I HAD to guess, I would say pullet based solely off of the feather pattern. It's just so nicely uniformed compared to EE cockerels.

I think you have one of those chickens where we're just going to have to wait for a crow or an egg.Very pretty either way though

 

[speckledhen]

This one is truly a difficult one to call. Feather pattern looks female, but that is major color in the comb for the age, plus the stance screams male.

I bet there will be red color popping out in there somewhere (in the plumage, I mean) in the future so I'll still say male, but honestly, I'm not really sure. You have a little puzzler on this one!

 

[debid]

Where did you get this mutant chicken?! I'm not sure what to make of it. That is very feminine patterning but the tail feathers are so very pointy and the stance is awfully upright. I hope you'll keep updating the photos. I'm going with "too early to tell"