Any roos here?

[jahphotogal]

I have three possible roos - a brown leghorn (sold as a pullet), an australorp (straight run from TSC) and a bantam silkie (ditto). All approximately 6 or 7 weeks old. What do you think? I know female leghorns have large combs, so hoping she's a girl. The Australorp is very aggressive - chestbumps and herds the others. S/he particular picks on the silkie

 

[Silkiesandco]

They look like all roos. Sorry.

 

[Alex15]

The first pic of your Lorp looks hen ish but the last one looks rooish. If its closer to 7 weeks old could be a hen. My hens started getting their waddles and quite pink, but not really red. The leghorn does look like a roo, but I have no experience with them so maybe you're right with the girls having the head gear. Silkie seems maybe boy, but I'd def wait and see!

 

[jahphotogal]

How can you tell with silkies?
Also the leghorn doesn't act rooish -s/he is quite mild mannered.

 

[oletymer]

How can you tell with silkies?
Also the leghorn doesn't act rooish -s/he is quite mild mannered.

roo's are usually friendly and like coming to you when there young, but once they reach there puberty they go there own way and then want to be boss,

 

[Kev]

That one leghorn is a roo because all that black on his breast? that's roo coloring coming in. Pullet breasts come out all tan/light brown- the same color as the one on right in pic of two birds on a box.

silkie is boy as his comb is getting quite large already. lorp looks girlish but agree should wait a couple weeks to be sure.

 

[jahphotogal]

I went back and looked at the leghorn again - s/he is actually mostly black all over, not just breast. Does that make a difference?

 

[RockerHen]

I went back and looked at the leghorn again - s/he is actually mostly black all over, not just breast. Does that make a difference?

Nope. Roosters will be mostly black as chicks, with a few brownish red areas. Hens will have mostly brown coloring. When they start to get their adult feathers in, then the red will come in on their hackles, saddles, and wing patches. Give your guy a few more weeks, and you'll really start to see the red coming in around the neck. Your silkie looks like a boy to me as well, maybe your australorp too, though I would wait a few weeks on that one.

 

[jahphotogal]

I'll be sad if the leghorn is a boy - I picked this group to have the widest range of egg colors and s/he is the only one that would give me white ones. (The silkie would too, but I didn't buy her for her eggs, but for how cute she (or he) is. Looks like I will be rehoming a few of this batch... probably just as well because 11 chickens is too many for my tiny yard! But I'll be sorry to see them go. I had hoped that maybe we could keep a bantam silkie rooster - maybe its crow isn't too loud? (My year-old hens cluck their heads off and the neighbors don't seem to mind!)
The keepers (so far, anyway) are two easter eggers (each with very different very pretty coloring), a welsummer and a RIR. My older hens are a Columbian Wyandotte, Golden Laced Wyandotte, Penguin the Blind Chicken (easter egger but her eggs are brown) and a very mean and cranky Olive Egger. She'd kill the new chicks if she could.

Funny story about her: she is a master escape artist - she's always finding new ways out of my run into the yard. And every time she does, she starts a new nest - I'm constantly combing the yard for her eggs. Once I found six. Today I found 3. I figure the easiest thing to do is to just let her out and then watch where she goes. If she can't get out she paces hysterically and squawks incredibly loudly - she's miserable. She has completely forgotten how to lay in the nesting boxes and is absolutely compelled to find a bush somewhere!

Anyway, if everyone except those three turn out to be girls, I'll have eggs in light brown, olive, blue (whatever the EE's end up laying) dark brown (the RIR) and Chocolate brown (the welsummer.) It will be a lovely array, though still no white eggs! Last year I started out with six chickens and the one white egg layer (an Austra White) also turned out to be a rooster. I want a fully multi-cultural egg selection - no discrimination here!

 

[maxmcl]

all roosters except for first pic