Early crowing attempt?

[cwrite]

I purchased 6 sexed chicks - 2 ISA browns, 2 Australorps & 2 Heritage Long Lays. They are 5 weeks old now. I'm highly suspicious that one HLL may be a boy because his legs are noticably thicker than the others ,he has a much wider space to grow a comb but nothing showing yet while all the others have tiny combs coming up and he's the most dominant. However, this morning, the youngest ISA brown looked like she was crowing at me but no sound came out and the HLL followed suit. Do boys 'practice' crowing before their voice comes in?

 

[donrae]

I did a search on Heritage Long Lay and came up empty. Can you tell us more about these birds? I'm guessing they're a hybrid, are they supposed to be sex linked?

At 5 weeks you can tell for sure if an ISA brown is male or female. Brown/red with white tips and tail is female. White with reddish wings is male.

Yes, young cockerels can practice crowing this young.

If you post a pic, we can help determine gender.

 

[cwrite]

The boy suspect in the first photo is the closest one looking at the camera and in the second photo is the HLL bending down while the female is looking at the camera.

 

[donrae]

The comb's cut off in the second pic, but I'm not seeing anything screaming rooster at this point.

 

[cwrite]

I hope you can see the ISA brown clearly enough. There must be an art to taking pics of chicks. All I know about Heritage Long Lays is what is on the website of the farm I bought them from. As I haven't had chickens since I was a kid & didn't do most of the work I went for a variety of standard egg layers.

 

[cwrite]

Oops - I forgot to include the link. http://www.heritagehatchingandhens....9212_details.asp?Category=37&SubCategory=3154
I know it's early, but one ISA brown died after we had it a day, one is turning out to be 'masculine' and seeing the ISA brown practicing crowing has made me anxious because having to loose 3 out of six is a pretty high attrition rate.

 

[donrae]

Your ISA is female

The white birds look to be some type of leghorn hybrid. I'd think a comb would be pretty obvious at this age if it were male.

 

[cwrite]

Thanks Rachel. That's great news! That farm does take roosters back but I haven't had the courage to ask what they do with them & now I don't have to.