Barred Rock with rose comb and other puzzles - pictures

[larkflying]

I've been looking and looking for pullets - I realized that my main egg layers were 2 years old, and I was shocked. How have I lost track of time? (No wonder I wasn't getting very many eggs!) So I was eagerly scanning craigslist for pullets or laying hens -- younger than a year -- breed didn't matter. My search was successful last week, and I found 12 pullets at an immaculate old farm in farming country with a very nice gentleman who caught all of the little things with a butterfly net (I need to get one of those). I paid his ridiculously low price ($5 / pullet) and left, thinking, aha - now I have 9 barred rocks and 3 Easter Eggers -- maybe I'll keep my unexpected barred rock roo that I got earlier in the year and hatch out some more chicks next year. Barred rocks are nice sturdy chickens -- not exciting, but they lay eggs . . . and so on.

After observing the pullets in their moveable temporary coop . . . I was puzzled . . . Seven of the pullets were greyish, had light grey/white legs, and indistinct barring. Maybe they were younger and haven't developed? They didn't LOOk sick or act sick . . . After researching, I thought -- did I get Cuckoo Marans by accident? What do you think?

And here's another view:

So, I thought, I still have 2 barred rocks. Not bad . . . with the rooster and my older pullet, that gives me 4 . . . when I examined my barred rock pullets again. One looked fine -- yellow legs, nice barring, nice shape -- but the other had a rose comb. What was going on? And of course, I forgot to get a picture of the barred rock rose comb pullet, but here's one of her sister with the normal comb, plus the other two kinds of pullets in the batch.

IS there a barred chicken that has a rose comb, or is this a mix? I don't care either way -- they both look like pullets to me, and that is what I bought them for - but it surprised me! I will have to track her down for a personal undivided photo shoot.

And finally, these beautiful brown and yellow pullets (or is one a roo - bother -- what am I going to do with him . . .) he said were Easter Egg chickens which was fine, but I'm thinking that they really are not, now that I've watched them awhile. I do have Easter Eggers with this coloring, but not with straight combs and yellow legs, and the pullets seem lighter than the EE's to me - but that could be just because they are young . . . They look more like Brown Leghorns to me.

So what do you think?

I like all the pullets no matter what they are (although I will be impressed with the deal even more if I ended up with Maran's - even production ones) since I got them to lay eggs and I'm 99% sure that all but one of the brown chickens is a pullet. The gentleman was really nice, and clearly not overly into the minutia of chickens . . .

Thanks for helping!

 

[akcountrygrrl]

Well, if they are purebred and not barnyard crosses, then you probably have cuckoo Marans, barred Rock, Dominique (barred rose comb), and Welsummer (could be light brown Leghorn but I'm not seeing any white ear lobes developing). On your Welsummer-like birds, you would definitely be able to tell a roo since their color pattern would be different from the hens'.

 

[Pele]

Heehee it sounds like you've had quite a time trying to sort out your new flock. Assuming your flock is purebred, here are my guesses:

Your first picture definitely looks like a bunch of Cuckoo Maran pullets
The rose-combed barred is a Dominique. They're spooky similar to Barred Rocks except the combs.
I agree with your last guess, those look like some nice Brown Leghorn hens.

Hope that helps you sort things out a bit. They all look lovely!

 

[larkflying]

Thanks for the info -- I'm happy now! I almost didn't go and get the pullets, because I already had some barred rocks and wanted more variety, but I guess I have that too. I'll watch for the white earlobes on the brown chickens and see what develops. I didn't realize that Welsummers also had that coloring. And the dominique pullet is exactly like a barred rock, except for the rose comb. Hmmm. I wonder if he got a fancy layer assortment or something . . .