Favorite Light Brahma Hen- A ROO?!?!?!

[Rainie]

A couple of weeks ago my father stared at my Light Brahma hen, Harriet, and bluntly stated "Congrats, you have a rooster." I was indignant. My Harriet? A roo?! No. "She's just bigger than the other girls because she's a light brahma. And she's bossy because she's at the top of the pecking order. Besides, she's 6 months old now, she would have tried to crow already if she were a boy."

Well, I pretty much doomed myself with that statement, I think, because I was out feeding the girls tomatoes yesterday, and noticed something very disturbing......

Pointy saddle feathers?!?!?! NO!

A closer look...

Some full-body shots...

Head shots....

By the way, does anyone know what the wart/growth looking thing is on the beak? He/She has had it forever, and is showing no other symptoms of something wrong other than the wart/growth. I will be posting it on the emergencies board, but I figured I'd throw that out here, too.

So, I take it Harriet is Harry, and for whatever reason, he hasn't crowed yet?

 

[cwhit590]

Those are definitely saddle feathers!

Looks like his name is Harry...

 

[PotterWatch]

Yep, that's a roo! No idea about the growth on his beak though.

 

[M To The Maxx]

Roo

 

[whitecra]

Looks just like my roo.
chris

 

[Rainie]

The second I saw the saddle feathers, I knew it had to be a roo. He's my favorite, though, so I didn't want it to be true. We are allowed to keep roosters (we're grandfathered in) but I'm really worried about what the neighbors are going to be like when he starts crowing.

Guess it's time to craigslist him.

I could try making a somewhat-soundproof mini-coop in the garage for him to be in during the night and early morning hours, but I doubt that will work out very well.

I just don't want him to go to freezer camp. He's such a sweetheart, and he follows me around waiting for food and will jump up to get cherries/tomatoes out of my fingers.

Why do I always end up with a boy as my favorite?

 

[M To The Maxx]

Quote:
Why don't you keep him then if you get any complaints then put him on craigslist. Maybe your neighbors won't have a problem with him.

 

[Rainie]

Quote:
I'm going to try to keep him for as long as I can... I don't think anyone in this area is going to want a roo right now for any reason other than eating them. I'm going to get working on the little coop inside the garage.... I already know that someone in our neighborhood has a rooster, because I can hear a distant crow when I'm outside. As long as I try to minimize the noise made, the neighbors will (hopefully

) think it's coming from the same roo.

We have a mix of neighbors- ones that realize that this neighborhood used to be really agricultural, and roll with it, and ones that are sure that this should be a perfect vision of manicured suburbia. We have a fairly even split in the neighbors that live close to us.

 

[neferset]

Quote:
Try the mini coop anyway. What do you have to lose?

I always favor a rooster. If we buy 6 pullets and one is my favorite, I just bide my time for "her" to start crowing.

Nef

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

Yes, it's a light Brahma cockerel. The "growth" you're seeing is from him pushing against wire. When he does that, it's kind of like your cuticle being moved on your fingernail, the skin/waxy part just moves upwards towards the comb. Nothing to worry about as he doesn't even know it's there.