Barred Rock: cockerel or pullet?

[fuzzynurse]

Okay, so cockerels. Bummer. What are you basing that conclusion on? Trying to learn.

I suspected early on that they weren't 100% BR. But their white is way whiter and the barring more clean than any of the Dominiques I've had. Maybe BR/Dom cross? That would make them R/r and S/s and explain the rose comb and white(er)ness.

 

[fuzzynurse]

Totally agree with the rest hatchery quality Dominique cockerels. Here's how we can tell:
The saddle feathers, and the double barring, making them appear so light. What applies to a Barred Rock for barring in males and females, applies to a Dominique.

Yeah, I thought that the saddle looked cockish (cocky? cockesque?), but I was a bit in denial. The odds of getting 2 out of 2 male from hatchery vent sexed supposedly females is about 1/400 (assuming 95% accuracy, which is what most hatcheries claim), so it seemed unlikely for both to be male.

As far as the barring, though, I understand the genetics of the double barring making males lighter. But I'm not talking about the chicken as a whole. The white parts of the feathers look whiter than the white parts of the Dominiques I've had in the past (about a dozen from several breeders, including cockerels). My Doms were more yellowish/dingy. BRs are supposed to be S/S (silver) and Doms are s/s (gold), but a cross would be S/s and look silver. That said, I don't currently have any Dominiques for a direct comparison, so I only have memory to base it on. And I've never had BRs before, so I can't say for sure that I know what silver barred looks like other than pictures.

 

[Frazzemrat1]

I don't think I've seen a gold/black dom before. I believe that their coloring is supposed to be silver/black. According to the Livestock Conservancy, they're supposed to be black and white...
https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/dominique

 

[Pyxis]

BRs are supposed to be S/S (silver) and Doms are s/s (gold)

Aren't dominiques cuckoo, which is on a silver base? And even if they were gold, could you even see it? They'd still be extended black. Barring just stops pigment from forming in bands on the feather, so those parts should be white either way.

But ducks are my genetic forte, not chickens.

 

[fuzzynurse]

Cockerels. And definitely not barred rocks! You can tell by the combs. Look at mine to compare. Mine is a barred rock!

I never thought they were full BR, at least not once their combs grew. But a single comb (r/r) crossed with rose comb (R/R) would produce rose comb (R/r). BTW, historically there were Rose Comb Barred Rocks (link below), though I'm not sure if it was ever included in the standard.

https://books.google.com/books?id=8...Q#v=onepage&q="rose comb barred rock"&f=false

 

[Mosey2003]

I don't know of anyone carrying on a Rose Comb Barred Rock project currently

 

[rebrascora]

Since you picked these up from Tractor supply it is more likely that the mistake was theirs rather than the hatchery they came from. TSC are notorious for mixing chicks up and likely someone else got your BR pullets if they ordered them in specially for you but if you just got them out of a bin at TSC off the cuff there is even more chance of it being their mistake. I'm in the UK and have never set foot in America but from reading these threads I am well aware of how often chicks get mixed up at TSC and people end up with something other than what the label on the bin said or a member of staff told them at TSC.
I guess you will have two more chicken dinners now!

 

[Cyprus]

That is funny. I wonder what they sold all the white(yellow) chicks that were left off as.... white leghorn pullets probably!

We have people 'round here who come in and buy up all the males. If not, I'm betting they put them in the Cornish Cross bin.

 

[Mosey2003]

That's what I mean by head spots. They are autosexing in that way.
By different colors; my local tsc was selling straight run red sex-links

I've noticed a lot of places get straight run sexlinks in. If some poor person doesn't know the difference, and the kid doing the picking either doesn't know or doesn't care, it completely defeats the purpose of them!
The head spots on Barred Rocks really aren't that accurate, to me. I've never been able to pick them like that lol. My homebreds I can usually nail down in a few days by leg color and often the males will have a slight silver sheen to them, but they aren't pure hatchery lines either.

 

[Ox21167]

Cockerels. Definitely.