He was supposed to be a Delaware...

dedseven

Hatching
9 Years
Jun 8, 2010
6
0
7
Colville, NE Washington State
Hello again to all forum members! I have a cockerel that seems to be something other than what I ordered and I would like to see if any of you can satisfy my curiosity as to what breed he is.

I recently moved onto some property which has an existing chicken coop so I decided to get a few dual purpose birds in hopes of producing eggs for myself and a few friends as well as a few birds for the freezer now and then. I want a self-sustaining flock but I do not want the bother of incubating eggs myself, preferring to let the hens take the natural approach. In an attempt to keep my life as simple as possible, I decided to stick with one breed. After a bit of research I chose the Delaware breed and ordered three dozen strait run chicks from Welps Hatchery. They sent forty, thirty nine of which are thriving after fifty eight days in my care. The Priority Mail sticker shows that these birds were shipped from the same zip code in New Mexico where Privetts Hatchery is located. They have been very healthy and active so far and I am well satisfied with them. One of the birds is definitely not the same as his mates. He is the smallest bird, smaller than the smallest pullet. He started growing a large, bright red single comb and wattles sooner than any other bird and currently has a comb that is twice the size of the combs on cockerels that are twice HIS size! He was the first (and so far only) bird to start crowing (58 days old). He is all-white with none of the dark markings of his Delaware flock mates. All of the other birds can and do beat up on him but he does a good job of staying out of their way while still getting food and water. He is not as human-friendly as the others and is a much better flier. As a 2 day old chick he was about the same size as the Delawares. I have provided some pictures, what can you tell me?

The first two pictures are at 42 days old, the rest at 56 days. In the last picture he is in the top right section. The other birds are his same-aged Delaware buddies. Thanks for looking!

59901_42_days_2.jpg


59901_42_days_1.jpg


59901_58_days_2.jpg


59901_58_days_1.jpg
 
Thanks for the replies. He has never had any kind of tail. I don't know enough about chickens (yet) to know if he has a tailbone or not. Is it visible or does one find it by feel? He is maturing faster than all the Delawares. Is that normal for a Leghorn? His attempts at crowing are quite comical, but he is getting better!
 
He looks like he has a touch of pink at his earlobe, still too young to have truely white or read earlobes though. If it's red he wouldn't be a leghorn, and his body type is too heavy for a leghorn. Being a hatchery bird he may just have poor coloring. Plus it does't have a tail, at least right now.
This sounds like a case for speckled hen
 

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