Hey all! Been a good bit since I've posted on here... but here it goes! Skip to the pictures if you don't want to read it all because I like to type a lot. 
Back in March I hatched some babies! There are 10 of them and they're about 7 weeks old now (and soon going to be heading outside!). 6 of them were hatched from easter egger eggies (all 6 from one momma and all 6 were fertile!), one was an older white leghorn hen, one came from a brown leghorn, and two were from buff orpington eggs!
These little fellas are adorable, and for the most part I can now tell who is what. Five are full-on easter eggers (three are definitely pullets, two are roos), one is a white leghorn (hen) x easter egger (roo) pullet, one is an easter egger (hen) x white leghorn (roo) cockerel (if he isn't then I am the chicken, because he crows non-stop and has the biggest comb of any 7 week old chick i've ever seen).
The issue I'm having arises with the final three! The mother hens were purchased from a local chicken keeper and I have absolutely no idea what the rooster(s) he had were. I had already started collecting eggs to hatch and decided "hey, they laid me eggs, lets throw them in with the others and see what happens!". Well, three of the four hatched and one I am almost positive is a pullet. She's small and has almost no comb to speak of yet. My EExwhite leghorn cockerel has even started trying to tread her. Good grief. I thought she was a full on brown leghorn (because she looked like the shining example of a brown leggie chick when she hatched), but she's almost entirely black and has a fluffy beard, with no white earlobe to speak of! The markings a brown leghorn usually has are there, they're just a darker rust color. And her legs are a slate color, not the tannish-gray of a BLH. But she's not the issue...
Skip to here if you don't wanna read all that!
It's the little buff orpington x ??? mysteries!
Here we have Roux (left) and Flapjack (right):
My guess, based slightly on comb size/color and behavior is Roux = Pullet, and Flapjack = Cockerel. Looking at them, they're almost identical! Flapjack has a bit more color on his feathers, and a darker and slightly fluffier beard. I've seen him crow a grand total of one time about two weeks ago, but I haven't been watching them constantly, so he may have done it more. Roux hasn't crowed at all, as far as I know, but she's just as big as Flapjack and maybe a might fluffier. Flapjack has a big ol' poof of butt saddle feathers while Roux's are not quite so puffy, and as far as I can tell the hackles are all rounded, which usually means pullets!
I am quite confused! I know hens can sometimes crow, so that's no surefire way to know for sure...
So, I'm doubting my guesses quite a lot now... Do I have a hen and a roo, two roos, or two hens??
More pics of Flapjack:
And more pics of Roux:
And both, Roux on the left, Flapjack on the right:
Back in March I hatched some babies! There are 10 of them and they're about 7 weeks old now (and soon going to be heading outside!). 6 of them were hatched from easter egger eggies (all 6 from one momma and all 6 were fertile!), one was an older white leghorn hen, one came from a brown leghorn, and two were from buff orpington eggs!
These little fellas are adorable, and for the most part I can now tell who is what. Five are full-on easter eggers (three are definitely pullets, two are roos), one is a white leghorn (hen) x easter egger (roo) pullet, one is an easter egger (hen) x white leghorn (roo) cockerel (if he isn't then I am the chicken, because he crows non-stop and has the biggest comb of any 7 week old chick i've ever seen).
The issue I'm having arises with the final three! The mother hens were purchased from a local chicken keeper and I have absolutely no idea what the rooster(s) he had were. I had already started collecting eggs to hatch and decided "hey, they laid me eggs, lets throw them in with the others and see what happens!". Well, three of the four hatched and one I am almost positive is a pullet. She's small and has almost no comb to speak of yet. My EExwhite leghorn cockerel has even started trying to tread her. Good grief. I thought she was a full on brown leghorn (because she looked like the shining example of a brown leggie chick when she hatched), but she's almost entirely black and has a fluffy beard, with no white earlobe to speak of! The markings a brown leghorn usually has are there, they're just a darker rust color. And her legs are a slate color, not the tannish-gray of a BLH. But she's not the issue...
Skip to here if you don't wanna read all that!
It's the little buff orpington x ??? mysteries!
Here we have Roux (left) and Flapjack (right):
My guess, based slightly on comb size/color and behavior is Roux = Pullet, and Flapjack = Cockerel. Looking at them, they're almost identical! Flapjack has a bit more color on his feathers, and a darker and slightly fluffier beard. I've seen him crow a grand total of one time about two weeks ago, but I haven't been watching them constantly, so he may have done it more. Roux hasn't crowed at all, as far as I know, but she's just as big as Flapjack and maybe a might fluffier. Flapjack has a big ol' poof of butt saddle feathers while Roux's are not quite so puffy, and as far as I can tell the hackles are all rounded, which usually means pullets!
I am quite confused! I know hens can sometimes crow, so that's no surefire way to know for sure...
So, I'm doubting my guesses quite a lot now... Do I have a hen and a roo, two roos, or two hens??
More pics of Flapjack:
And more pics of Roux:
And both, Roux on the left, Flapjack on the right:
