a few more questions about gender

[StellaLenoir]

From the feathers my 21 week old polish are male.

1 is crowing, and has obvious pointy feathers and sickle shaped tail feathers.
His wattles are very long. All his male type feathers are much more pronounced than the others.

2 are not crowing, but have male feathers, just not as pronounced. they have wattles that are MUCH smaller than the known rooster of the same age.

they all have the same size little spur bumps,even the hen.
Questions....

does the difference in wattle size mean anything? Could it be because they are diff breeds but still all polish?

Why would they not be crowing like the other rooster?

again they are all the same age.

Can a hen have male type feathers?

i posted pics in the post about stomping and scratching.

thanks for any help. I am obsessed with figuring them out!

 

[Matt Berry]

Like many things size varies according to the individual and not necessarily the breed. You could have many roosters of the same breed and find that some boys wattles are smaller, larger, reder or paler then others. It also depends on their dominance, the dominant rooster tends to show a larger and redder comb then the others.

From your pictures they both look like males, now of course there are situations where a "hen" could have male feathering but it is because they are actually hermaphrodites, which normally don't really lay eggs but don't always act fully like a roo either.

As for your two that don't crow, sometimes males lower in the pecking order won't crow, or an individual rooster just chooses not to crow. They also sometimes take their time to find their voice.

 

[MissPrissy]

We culled 11 cockerals from our spring flock in the past month. Since they have ceased to exist and run rampant in the coop our male Polish, Elvis, has nearly doubled in size and he is now crowing. I think there really is something to the dominance theory with cockerals raised together and the heirarchy of the pecking order in their gender.