Am only stopping in to say this......I posted a picture of my barred cochin no less than four times, maybe more. I simply could not tell if he was a she or a he. It took him getting beat up by the BO rooster for any of us to be sure.
Harry is a LF cochin. Sweetest bird ever. But his feathers were so fluffy it was impossible to tell if they were rooster feathers or not. Finally after I separated him and was sure that he was a he I could SEE his rooster feathers. Now that I have two girls for him and can see the three all together I can see the difference easily.
I love cochins and plan on increasing my flock this year. Yes, they are slow to mature. Yes, they are hard to sex. But there has never been a sweeter chicken.
It is only in the last two months that this chicken who harms none, never got in another chickens way....was the bottom of the pecking order forever...it is only now that you can see that he is a he.....a very sweet he.
I understand having a hard time sexing a cochin. But what a wealth of knowledge there is on this thread about cochins!!!