Barred Rock and...

[AllisonD]

Hey, everyone. We adopted a 2 year old barred rock hen to add to our three pullets, she was getting beat up in her original flock and we thought adding her to a group of younger birds would give her a leg up in the pecking order. That worked out great. But I've been looking at her, and I don't know if she's just a bad example of her breed or if she might be mixed with something else. Her barring is poor, she's smaller and more light in build than our BR pullets, she seems to have some brown coloration on her back and wings and tail, and the shape and angle of carriage on her tail is very different from our original pullets. Here's a picture of her:


And for comparison, here's one of our six month old pullets:


I'm not super concerned about her quality in terms of breed, but seeing if she's mixed might give some clues as to her hardiness, her productivity, and her likelihood to lay through the winter. She's off lay right now, we haven't got egg one from her... I figure the move probably stressed her out, and now it looks like she's molting, but it doesn't look like she's hit henopause yet. Any input?

 

[Mac14]

Ya, she looks a lot different.

 

[AllisonD]

Yeah, in her build and with her high tail, she looks a lot like the neighbor's leghorn in terms of her shape...

 

[Fred's Hens]

She's a bit of a mix, as you suspect. The problem with guessing what else is in their is that the barring "hides" a lot whatever else is in her. If she's healthy and doing well, that's really all that's important.

 

[AllisonD]

Thanks, Fred's Hens! Yeah, she seems okay, no visible external parasites, and while not as active as our young girls, she does her share of chasing bugs. Maybe after she's done molting she'll start laying.

 

[donrae]

I agree, her father was barred and her mother was lighter bred. But as Fred said, the barring makes it hard to see what else was in the mix.

Good eye for seeing the little differences!