Greetings from Awahuri, New Zealand

[Erebus]

Hi folks,
Stumbled upon your site while cruising online.
I moved from a city to a 5.5acre lifestyle block in Awahuri, New Zealand, in January this year and have been keeping custody of my father-in-laws chickens.
I have claimed the chicks that have been hatched since I started looking after them

I moved from the city of Christchurch, New Zealand after there was an earthquake and we wanted to avoid the aftershocks.
Thankfully we missed the biggest quake as a result. I live with my husband, 2 sons (Oct 2007 and Jan 2010), 2 cats, and 22 chooks (NZ slang for chickens).

My F-I-L has:
5 ex-battery Brown Shavers
1 adult rooster, 7 well healed hens and 1 pullet (approx30wks)
They look mostly like Rhode Island Reds but I have it on authority that their lineage is very mixed.
It includes maybe bantam, shaver, something white (leghorn?/rock?), something black (Australorp?) and possibly something like barnevelder.

I have:
7 x 19week juveniles (4 Barred Rocks roosters, and 3 juveniles from the rest of the flock) and one 21 week runt that I rescued from the weather who has been hand reared for a few weeks and fostered by the mother of the other 3 (despite the fact that she's nearly half their size). The runt I have named "Blondie" because she was a very pale chick and still is the palest chicken in the group. The non-barred ones are still gender indeterminate. None of them have started crowing and I have my suspicions about a couple of them, but nothing firm.

I bought the Barred Rocks for meat and keeping one for breeding; my 3-year-old son has named the biggest one Joey

Any hints welcome on how to pick the gender of birds in a really heterogeneous group where comb size and colour is a bit unpredictable.

 

[ghillie]

 

[dawg53]

Welcome to BYC.

 

[MSDeb]

Welcome to BYC, glad you decided to join us. Good luck with your birds.

 

[Backyard Hencam]

Welcome from the central coast of California. It is hard to tell the gender differences until they crow or lay. But seriously, you'll see changes in comb and waddle color and size and sometimes the young roosters have longer legs. Post some pictures and we'll try to help.

P.S. So sorry for all of you that had to go through that terrifying earthquake! Glad you are safe!

 

[4-H chicken mom]

and

from Ohio. So glad you joined. There are only a couple breeds that can be sexed by coloring. I don't relie just on comb size. I had a buff once that had a huge comb and it turned out to be a hen.

 

[awesomefowl]

 

[Luckytaz]

Welcome, from Minnesota.

 

[Symphony]

from SC!

 

[Erebus]

I have tried to tell by carding the chooks to identify their neck feather shape, one of them the voice broke early and it's big, but most of or birds have very small combs. I can't tell if it's a mutation, or recessive or something but more of the girls have practically no comb and I don't know if a boy would have a similarly disproportionate comb.

The barred rocks on the other hand are getting quite floofy in the tail department and about now would be an appropriate time for one or two of them to hit the table. I haven't done it myself before and it's a little sad, but at least I know they are happy meat