Crowing Hens or Roosters?

[Amberjem]

frosty and rerun look like hens to me, daisy I think is cockerel but I dont know with leghorn but it looks like cockerel feathering to me just hard to "see" in photo the feathering type but cockerel is what I'd go with, on the bright side you have your pick of the litter for cockerels good luck with your issue with the "breeder"

 

[FL Crowing Hen]

Since I've ended up with 7 roosters, I'd be willing to keep one. Would you all agree that I shouldn't have more than one with such a small flock? Any tips on characteristics I should look for in one that I plan on keeping?

 

[enola]

The only dealing i would have with that "breeder" would be to exchange the roosters for hens. If he has no intentions of exchanging the chickens you will have learned a valuable lesson.

 

[Bessetti]

If you keep one you need to get more females, from what I've read it's 1 male to every 10 females. If you had one roo with 2 hens they could get overworked and hurt. Definitely don't have more than one cockerel.

I agree with the previous poster, can you try to trade them for actual hens?

 

[Amberjem]

Since I've ended up with 7 roosters, I'd be willing to keep one. Would you all agree that I shouldn't have more than one with such a small flock? Any tips on characteristics I should look for in one that I plan on keeping?

gotta agree with them, I'd be not inclined to work with them but would try to see if they correct the issue

 

[Percheron chick]

I would be hesitant to work with this individual as he has been wrong with every bird he sold you. No harm in trying to see if he will at least fix the hen part. You should have a basic understanding of the obvious feathering and comb/waddle differences between cockerels and pullets now. Only take home those that you know are girls. You are done with him at this point. He obviously doesn't have any control over the breeding pens as they all are Xs. Some of the discrepancies are legit as day old chicks can be hard to identify when they are all together. Frosty is not an ameraucans as she is not a standard color. She is an EE and should give you a pretty green egg when she's ready.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

With birds this age the differences are easy to see once you know what you are looking for/at. Here is a good visual

The saddle and hackle feathers of a rooster will be long, flowing, shiny and skinny/pointed in appearance - think of them as Fabio feathers. A pullets feathers in these same areas will be like the rest of her feathers - rounded, blunt, close to the body and similar in color and shine to the rest of her body. Cockerels have long, curved sickle feathers in their tail - pullets do not.

For birds like your Slick - a red sex link - color/pattern also tell you the gender -- see the differences in the picture below:



For Easter Eggers (your Ameraucanas are actually Easter Eggers), the males who are patterned (as opposed to Daisy who is solid) tend to have patchy red coloration on the wing bows - see Hawkeye.

Compare your Frosty and Rerun to the rest of your birds - look at the saddle, hackle and tail feathers; look at how many of your males show patchy coloration on the body/wingbows, look at how they stand differently and have a different overall build than the others. Now that you have your denial (understandable) out of the way the differences will be easy to see - and this will help you moving forward as you have learned one big lesson and that is that not all sellers can be trusted, whether due to intentional misrepresentation or ignorance, you are your own best advocate and protector against such future situations.

 

[Amberjem]

With birds this age the differences are easy to see once you know what you are looking for/at. Here is a good visual

The saddle and hackle feathers of a rooster will be long, flowing, shiny and skinny/pointed in appearance - think of them as Fabio feathers. A pullets feathers in these same areas will be like the rest of her feathers - rounded, blunt, close to the body and similar in color and shine to the rest of her body. Cockerels have long, curved sickle feathers in their tail - pullets do not.

For birds like your Slick - a red sex link - color/pattern also tell you the gender -- see the differences in the picture below:



For Easter Eggers (your Ameraucanas are actually Easter Eggers), the males who are patterned (as opposed to Daisy who is solid) tend to have patchy red coloration on the wing bows - see Hawkeye.

Compare your Frosty and Rerun to the rest of your birds - look at the saddle, hackle and tail feathers; look at how many of your males show patchy coloration on the body/wingbows, look at how they stand differently and have a different overall build than the others. Now that you have your denial (understandable) out of the way the differences will be easy to see - and this will help you moving forward as you have learned one big lesson and that is that not all sellers can be trusted, whether due to intentional misrepresentation or ignorance, you are your own best advocate and protector against such future situations.

awesome like the diagrams

 

[appps]

Wow!  I planned on 9 pullets, and I've got 2 pullets and 7 cockerels.  Wow!  No wonder there's so much drama going on in my chicken pen.  Ironically, they'd probably get along ok without the 2 females in their midst, but then I'd have no eggs.  I've been feeding layer rations to a bunch of cocks.  The irony is comical.

My husband is going to visit the breeder today.  He's an old guy with a huge operation of chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese.  Over 300 birds on his property.  Despite the volume, he doesn't advertise or anything and sells birds and eggs based on word of mouth.  I wonder if he somehow got confused when sexing them for me.  Oh well, we'll see if he will take them back.  

So, I've read a bunch of stuff about distinguishing males and females, yet it was really hard for me to tell for sure.  Of course I think part of that was denial since I was told by an experienced chicken farmer that they were pullets.  Even when they started crowing, I found some articles about hens crowing and figured that's what I had, crowing hens, lol.  So any tips on how to tell them apart?  I'm now a little gun shy and am worried that if I try again, I'll end up with roosters again.  

Maybe he's got a bit of dementure going on too because not only did he get most of the sexes wrong but it appears the breeds too. Can a reputable breeder really be that off with so much? And if he can't sex, which many can't which is fine, them he should have explained that not sold straight run as females.

If he takes them back I would go elsewhere for their replacements.

 

[enola]

Can a reputable breeder really be that off with so much? ----- You have hit the problem right there ...... He is not a reputable breeder. And it is always a pity that new people in the chicken world have to find out the hard way.