Barred Rock: cockerel or pullet?

[Crazy for Chickens!]

Dominique Cockerels

 

[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.

 

[Frazzemrat1]

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.

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.

 

[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.

 

[Mosey2003]

Both are male dominiques.
Dominiques are a different breed of chicken that is basically a BR with a rose comb.

I've never understood how hatcheries can so drastically mess up sexing AUTO SEXING breeds. They literally hatch different colors. Not that hard.
I've been better than the HATCHERIES at selecting pullets from bins of autosexing chickens.

Neither Barred Rocks nor Dominiques are auto-sexing. You can kind of tell the differences at hatch by the shape of the head spot and leg wash, but the males and females aren't different colors.

Dominiques were actually a breed before Barred Rocks were, they have a different body shape and their barring is cuckoo rather than the (supposed to be) crisp black and white bars of the Rocks.

 

[Ducksandchickens]

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

 

[fuzzynurse]

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.

Right. Dominiques show up as a dirtier white rather than a gold. At least that's what I've read in the past.

 

[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