Crowing Hen?

[Birdragon]

I have seven 4 month old chickens of various breeds along with four older chickens in my flock. I am not allowed to have roosters in town, so I recently had to give away two of the 4 month olds who were bigger than the rest, had large combs and wattles, and were crowing. Roosters, obviously. A week later, two more of the 4 month olds started crowing. They have large tails, but no combs or wattles to speak of and they had previously shown no rooster characteristics. Then One mounted another chicken! Somebody please help, I really don't want to have to get rid of two more chickens!

 

[my sunwolf]

Welcome to BYC!

Sometimes without a rooster around, a hen will start to take on the role of dominant chicken, which can include mounting other hens and occasionally crowing. If you post a picture in the What Breed or Gender is This forum, you might get some definite answers as to hen or roo from the community

 

[Birdragon]

Thanks for your reply! Two of them are crowing, though it is mainly the red one, which is odd because the other one seems to be dominant (over the red one). Does that happen? And why, if they are roosters, would they only begin to crow once the other two were gone?

 

[donrae]

Sorry, but at this age a crowing bird is a rooster. Older, dominant hens can start crowing, but not young birds. As far as why they are now, well, different birds mature at different rates. All pullets don't lay the same day, all roosters don't crow the same day. You can post pics if you want, but I'm betting they're roosters.

 

[my sunwolf]

Ech, sorry, I thought the title of your post was speculative... that you were asking if one of the hens might start crowing, since it was mounting other hens. Agreed with donrae that it's probably a roo, but you can always get picture confirmation as well.

 

[Smoochie]

Older hens can crow but it is rare... Sounds like a slow maturing cockerel. You should post a pic.