Did I end up with all roosters?

[heathergreen]

I'm a newbie to chickens...we set up our coop, made sure it was perfect then started to search for some chickens. I wanted to start with around five hens...all old enough to go right out side to the coop (wasn't interested in raising chicks yet). It was difficult to find someone near by me that had any old enough.

I found one guy through craigslist about and hour and a half away from me...and he said he had a bunch that were all around 4 1/2 months. Went to his place and he showed me all of his hens and I picked out four. As we were leaving I mentioned I wanted silkies too and he said he knew a lady down the street with some, so he called her. She only had one Silkie rooster but I really wanted a silkie so I went and bought the lone rooster.

I posted some photos in a group I'm in on facebook and I'm finding out that besides the silkie rooster....there are three other possible roosters in this group! The Rhode Island Red, possibly the gold/black one, and possibly the grey with the red/brown on the wings.

Here's the photos I have that I took with my phone, I'll take some better ones today if any of you need to see some closer shots just let me know.

I'd love to know who the roo's are if you guys know....

 

[EweSheep]

RIR is a rooster
The silkie looks roo-ish because of the streamers but only time I can tell is when they start crowing.

In the first picture, the blue bird with brown smudges on its wings, that one is a roo.

The brown and black one (speckled or broken patterns) on the right is a pullet.
The black on the far left with tail toward the camera looks more pullet.

So it looks like you got two pullets and three cockerals. Either you get more pullets or get rid of the cockerals.

 

[heathergreen]

How many pullets would I need to keep the roosters happy? My coop is only 10'x10', don't want to overcrowd it.

 

[HEChicken]

I agree with Ewesheep as to which are pullets and cockerels. You really only need 1 roo for every 10 hens for fertility.

ETA: That was pretty lousy of the seller to sell you these birds knowing you wanted hens. They are old enough to easily tell, for anyone who has been around chickens for any length of time, so he took advantage of you being new to chickens to get rid of a few cockerels he didn't want. Hope your next experience is better.

 

[mama24]

If he will let you take them back and exchange them, look for the thin shiny pointy feathers on the neck (hackles) and back near the tail (saddle.) Also long curved feathers on the tail. Hens will have none of these, all of their feathers will be pretty uniform in length and round tipped. They might have a few curved feathers at the base of the tail, but they will not be thin and pointy, and they will not be long like a rooster's.

 

[heathergreen]

I'm going to email the guy and see if we can trade out two of the roosters.... I just took some new photos with better details and will post them in a few minutes.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Try trading back with the seller first.

With a 10x10 coop, more than one rooster would be very, very difficult. A rooster for every 8-10 hens is enough rooster. Since you don't likely have room for 16 hens, one rooster. The difficulty will be deciding on a bantam rooster or large fowl rooster for your large fowl hens. Also, the "RIR" is poor quality and likely a production red.

 

[featherz]

I'm going to email the guy and see if we can trade out two of the roosters.... I just took some new photos with better details and will post them in a few minutes.

I have a feeling this guy knew already but hopefully he will trade. I sell chickens on CL all the time and I try my best to give the correct gender - at 4.5 WEEKS I can see being wrong, but months? That's rare.

 

[heathergreen]

The more I look online and look at the RIR, he is definitely a rooster, in the sun you can see green in his tail feathers.

Here's some better views (you should be able to click these for a larger view)

The RIR...


The Silkie...we were told this was *possibly* a rooster and I bought him knowing that, and he was bought from a different person than the other four...


The little black one with feathered feet...


The grey/silver with brown on the wings...

 

[heathergreen]

Here's the one that everyone seems to agree is a pullet..posting her pics just to make sure she is a pullet before I contact this guy that sold them to me...