crowing roosters

[lisas]

Hi,I am new tochickens and live in the city in Florida.Are there any breed of chickens that the rooster does not crow or not crow loud enough to drive the nieghbors nuts.
Right now I just have 3 hens but would like to raise some babies sometime as I might like to try showing chickens. If it is not possible so be it., but I feel it never hurt to ask. Thanks Lisa

 

[JDH]

I'd like to know too!

Actually I have a mille fleur roo that is relatively quiet. He seems to crow more when folks are around versus when they aren't. He also doesn't start early which is nice!

 

[thechickman04]

i wouldnt recomend it but you could get a vet to de-crow a rooster

 

[FLchook]

I had a silkie boy that was extremely quiet. For longest time I thought I was hearing the rooster at the neighbors farm, but nope, it was my little fluffy butt! He was a sweetie too.

Where in Florida are ya? I live just outside of Orlando.

 

[lisas]

I'm in St.Petersburg

 

[ella]

Unfortunately there is no quiet breed. You may be able to find a quieter individual if you're lucky.

The best solution I've heard of if you want a rooster is an insulated coop with the capacity to black out the windows in the morning to keep him quiet until a later hour.

That said, all roosters crow and most crow all day long. It's silly to me that people complain about a single rooster when they live in a neighborhood with dogs and kids and cars, but I guess that's why I live in the country! Chickens are so much more reasonable than people.

 

[ososchicken]

I actually joined to ask the same question. Although, I am asking from a different perspective. We were given about 40 hens ranging from 1 year to 3 years old. The last group of ten were given to us 4 weeks ago. Two nights ago my wife cracked an egg that had a developing chick inside. We proceeded to crack a dozen or so more to find over half were fertilized, but none were developing as we collect daily and put in the fridge. My questions are numerous, but the main ones are these...

1> Will a hen hold an egg inside herself for a few days if she is stressed, allowing the egg to start developing? We collect daily and there is no way we missed any eggs. The boxes are raised and are cleaned daily (obsessive!).

2> We obviously have rooster. We think we have identified him as one of our Buff Orpingtons. He is the only bird we have with any type of spur buds (no spurs). He is smaller than the other Buffs and has a slightly darker head. Other than that, we cannot tell for sure. What else should we look for? We have never had any crowing AT ALL! Nor did the previous owners. For 3 years, he was thought to be a hen.

3> Is there any way to pass this quietness on if we can get a hen to go broody? Is quietness a genetic trait?

4> Why does he not have actual spurs?

5> Why would he not crow? - not that we are complaining. We are not able to keep a loud rooster at this time.

 

[CarriBrown]

Osos, are you SURE that egg hadn't been in the coop for some time? It takes around 10 days for an egg to get that point in development.
No, a hen can not hold an egg in her. How long have you had these birds? A hen can lay fertile eggs for weeks after one encounter with a rooster. Could this be from the old owner's rooster?
Your suspected rooster is probably not a rooster at all. Some hens do have darker combs, and some take on the role of a rooster (top hen). It's not uncommon for a roosterless flock of hens to have one hen that tries to crow.

Here is an example for you to look at. See the rooster on the top? The feathers on his neck and down by his tail are pointed, while the hen on the bottom has rounded out feathers. See how she also had a red comb and waddles? They may both look like roosters (or hens, I suppose) to someone who doesn't know what to look for.

 

[ososchicken]

We have had the suspect hens/rooster for around 4 weeks. But, we got ALL of the birds from the previous owners (all the birds they owned). They were completely penned up in a chain link coop with no way of getting out or other roosters (none in the area anyway - city) getting in. We thought there had to be a wild rooster around, but have not been able to find one. The suspect we have does have darker feathers and slightly straighter/less rounded at the neck. The tail is pretty similar to the other hens - only VERY MINOR differences, including a little more pointy. The only reason we suspect this one is that we saw some on-line pics of a buff oprington rooster that looked almost identical to ours. We have also noticed that he/she will not go in the nest boxes. We isolated him/her for the last couple of days - no eggs, and slightly noisy as we get close, a little more aggressive when we try to let it out.

As for the egg left in the coop, I am as sure as I can be. There is no way it was there for 10 days. We have a hen that likes to eat eggs. We collect several times a day and we clean it out completely every evening - empty the boxes to the wood frame, and wipe down. 100% cleaned every evening because of the one that eats them. (We have been having better luck in this area lately as we have added a couple golf balls to discourage and collect more often. She seems to be losing interest. Hope it lasts!)

Based on the pics you posted, I would say ours looks more like the rooster than the hen, but not much more. We counted more fertilized eggs this morning when cooking breakfast. Almost half. I am 100% sure there is a rooster somewhere. BTW, this is the only bird we have that has spur buds of any kind.

 

[Jster]

Do you have pictures of the fertilized eggs or developing chick? The reason I ask is (from my limited experience of reading, no roosters here yet!) sometimes people mistake blood spots on the yolk with a fertilized embryo...but a fertilized embryo is actually a small white dot. Even though we don't have a roo, we do sometimes get blood spots on the eggs.

How big was the developing chick, what did it look like?

Just thought I'd toss that out there!

The other things with the suspected roo...you'd probably have seen him mating, or herding, or some other behavior associated with roosters...at least, I'm guessing you would have.