We have six chickies which we bought as one-week olds and are now about eight weeks old. According to the woman who sold them to us, we have a silver spangled hamburg, a plymouth rock, two silver wyandottes and two gold wyandottes. We are newbies to chicken raising, so we need help in working out the gender of our birds. Here is the flock: Plymouth Rock Gold Wyandotte#1 Gold Wyandotte#2 Hamburg Silver Wyandottes Please tell me we have some girls.
I am way to new at this to give you a accurate guess at sexes. But the the Silver Wyandotte are actually the Columbian feather pattern and not silver, below is a link to the breed page with a picture that looks identical to your two birds. https://www.backyardchickens.com/breeds/wyandotte/chicken/139 I love the color variety of the flock, I am sure someone will give you the boy/girl answer soon.
Barred Rock is a cockerel (boy) Looking a bit boyish on the GLWs too. The Hamburg I will say pullet, but listen for a crow just in case. They are early crowers if it turns out to be a boy, but the way it is holding the tail makes me say pullet. And the two Columbian Wyandottes are pullets. Good luck with them!
Quote:Thanks Minniechickmama. The Barred Rock and the GLWs have noticably different personalities to the other three. They are more confident around me and will eat out of my hand whereas the others tend to be a bit more timid. So your advice confirms my amateur's guess.
You can expect the Hamburg to be skiddish and not want to come around. She may be different than mine, but all of mine go flying off when a human steps even close to the chicken yard. They are beautiful and quite interesting and entertaining birds to have around. Wyandottes are a friendly breed to begin with, but I am 100% sure that your Barred Rock is a cockerel.
We will try to find a home for the Barred Rock and the GLWs, but if we can't, at what age do they become dinner?
I have read that 12-16 weeks they are big enough, I butchered some similar breed extra roos this year at around 16-weeks and they dressed out at about 3-pounds a piece. If you want to fatten them up more, I suggest that you get them in a smaller area and feed them higher protein mix, like a 20% protein. They will dress out okay with that. Good luck. Besides, you will really know who are boys and who are girls by then without a doubt.
