I do not know about the genetics that affect crowing age. It probably does have a large genetic component, but I don't know any details.UPDATE: in the first picture, you can see my 2 cockerels, Billy and Alan. Alan seems to be much bigger than Billy but Billy is already starting to want to crow; his dad crowed at 7 weeks. I really hope Alan takes his time to crow like Messi, his uncle? Idk how chicken genetics work, he crowed at 14 weeks.
I have noticed that the first cockerel to crow is sometimes the biggest, sometimes the smallest, sometimes one in between. I think sometimes s small bird is behind in development (crows later), but sometimes the small one is ahead because he put less energy into growing big and more into sexual maturity instead.
That is pretty common.Is it normal for the cockerel of a black hen/red rooster to be all black?
That is also pretty common.Both the black pullets have a black neck but the rest of the feathers are either copper tinted or golden striped like the pic I included of Wilma.
The black one? She probably got the genes to be all-black from her mother, but without the gene that makes her mother actually be white. (Or more accurately, the gene that makes the mother white is probably recessive, so the chick inherited just one copy of that gene, which doe not cause any visible effect.)What really surprised me is that my red roo/ white rock hen mix is showing the same body type of the hen but the coloring is not at all like my other hens. Included a pic of her because she was the original maybe cockerel cuz she had slow like both parents. Vincentina is actually bigger than Billy but the same size as Alan, she is the biggest pullet of the bunch.