Advice please on this girl?

[Mirindaj]

I’m asking for your opinions on this girl. All my hens are 15 weeks old. Half Barred Rock & half ISA Browns. Is this one just more mature physically? All the others have a comb and some waddling just not like this. Thanks so much in advance!

 

[HappyClucker7]

ISA browns are sex linked. She is 100% a girl.

 

[Tookie]

Pullet.

 

[WhySayWhat]

Looks to me like she's about to start laying. My girls last year all got super red about a week before they actually started laying. Even my little scissor beak got redder right before we started finding 13 instead of 12 eggs every day!

 

[Mirindaj]

So she could start laying in the very near future? That would be fantastic!

 

[-Shade-]

Do you have roosters? If not, she is likely a head hen. They tend to have bigger redder combs when there is no rooster around. Otherwise, I'd say she may just be more mature than the other girls.

 

[Mirindaj]

Do you have roosters? If not, she is likely a head hen. They tend to have bigger redder combs when there is no rooster around. Otherwise, I'd say she may just be more mature than the other girls.

I don’t have any roosters. I’ve never heard of a head hen. She does act different than the others though now that I think of it. How does one become a head hen? I’m just curious on this one. Thanks!

 

[HappyClucker7]

I don’t have any roosters. I’ve never heard of a head hen. She does act different than the others though now that I think of it. How does one become a head hen? I’m just curious on this one. Thanks!

The head hen is just the hen at the top of the pecking order. She's usually the biggest, strongest, healthiest hen, and she fights her way to the top. (When the chicks are all raised together, most of this fighting happens when they're babies, so it's not very intense.) The head hen usually takes on a rooster-like roll, so she keeps an eye out for predators and she tells her flock members what to do. She also gets first dibs on food, nest boxes, roosting spots, etc.

 

[-Shade-]

I don’t have any roosters. I’ve never heard of a head hen. She does act different than the others though now that I think of it. How does one become a head hen? I’m just curious on this one. Thanks!

A head hen is at the top of the pecking order. It's like if a rooster is a king, the head hen is the queen. If there is no rooster around she takes that role as head chicken and often if there is no rooster, she tends to get bigger waddles and comb although she still acts mostly like a hen. She will peck others on top of the head sometimes or quite often and will be the one that gets the first pickings at food. She may be a little ornery too. I had some neighbors who gave us a flock of chickens with no roosters and there was one head that had a freakishly large comb and attacked my young rooster all the time.

 

[WhySayWhat]

Do you have roosters? If not, she is likely a head hen. They tend to have bigger redder combs when there is no rooster around. Otherwise, I'd say she may just be more mature than the other girls.

I would think so, my 13 hens (all hatched 4/26/2021) anged in point of lay from 16 weeks to 9 months (my weaker EE with a beak deformation)! Most of them were laying by 20 weeks and my heritage BPR was around 28 weeks. I have 3 that have been laying daily since right around 16 weeks though, they very very rarely miss a day.