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[chummychickens]

I ask all of those much more familiar with chickens to please help me. I understand from many other comments that hens don't crow( but they can) yet again I fall into the category of not knowing weather we were given a hen or a rooster. Z is only a couple months old and has been making this noise in the morning and occasionally in the afternoons. I have a feeling she is a he but I do t want to be right. I think she is a Plymouth Rock hen, her feet are whiteish in color with but her waddle is getting big and red along with her comb. Please help me figure z's sex and what leads you believe one way or the other
Thank you in advance

 

[chooks4life]

Looks probably male to me, but it's a bit hard to see the relevant feathering in that pic. Knowing how many months old exactly can help, but if you can get a closer or clearer shot of the wings/shoulders and neck and tail/rump areas, i.e. just a single good side-on shot of the bird will do, we will know for sure, I reckon.

Best wishes.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

That's a Barred Rock cockerel. You don't need to see the hackles and saddle feathers for this one. Firstly, he already has wattles larger than an adult hen would get, and secondly BR can be sexed by color because females get two copies of the barring gene while males only get one. That means that male BR are much lighter in color than females. See the photo below; male on the left, females on the right:


Also, on the hens crowing thing: lots of people latch on to this one, but crowing in a young bird always means male. The hens that crow are older hens with hormone problems, and they are rare.

 

[iwiw60]

I ask all of those much more familiar with chickens to please help me. I understand from many other comments that hens don't crow( but they can) yet again I fall into the category of not knowing weather we were given a hen or a rooster. Z is only a couple months old and has been making this noise in the morning and occasionally in the afternoons. I have a feeling she is a he but I do t want to be right. I think she is a Plymouth Rock hen, her feet are whiteish in color with but her waddle is getting big and red along with her comb. Please help me figure z's sex and what leads you believe one way or the other
Thank you in advance

ROO!!

 

[chooks4life]

The problem with sexing according to breed standards is that many birds even purebreds do not adhere to those standards. I've seen many BR hens with wattles that large, and pale coloring as well. Also, young hens do crow as well, it's a myth that only older hens crow. All the hens I've had that crowed were not old; two of them were quite young.

Best wishes.

 

[chooks4life]

I will just add that crowing's not always due to hormonal imbalance. Two of my hens that crowed did so in response to serious trauma, after a fox attack.

 

[Griffinsong]

Most likely a cockerel, and I am leaning towards Cuckoo Marans, not Barred Rock, the barring looks a bit like that on a hatchery quality BR but the leg color is not right for a BR. Though hatchery quality BR can have white legs, too.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

The problem with sexing according to breed standards is that many birds even purebreds do not adhere to those standards. I've seen many BR hens with wattles that large, and pale coloring as well. Also, young hens do crow as well, it's a myth that only older hens crow. All the hens I've had that crowed were not old; two of them were quite young.

Best wishes.

If a young bird is crowing, 99.9999% of the time it is a rooster. I find it cruel when BYC members hold out the false hope to newbies that their crowing bird, the one they desperately want to be female, is one of these "crowing pullets."

 

[fshinggrl]

Most likely a cockerel, and I am leaning towards Cuckoo Marans, not Barred Rock, the barring looks a bit like that on a hatchery quality BR but the leg color is not right for a BR. Though hatchery quality BR can have white legs, too.

I agree with this. BRs generally have yellow feet. But, this is a cockerel. I have a few in my flock that I really want to be female. No crowing yet, but it will happen and then I gotta figure out which one to keep and hopefully it will be a nice rooster.
Sorry.

 

[chooks4life]

If a young bird is crowing, 99.9999% of the time it is a rooster. I find it cruel when BYC members hold out the false hope to newbies that their crowing bird, the one they desperately want to be female, is one of these "crowing pullets."

Seriously, what's the odds I'd have a few crowing pullets/young hens in my flock, according to those 'stats' you state? Do you have any sources to back up that percentage you cited? Never mind, I'm (obviously) joking, not really asking for you to offer sources for that 'stat'; I know it's just a 'ball park figure' or exaggeration; please don't take offense as none is intended.

As with any chance, even unlikely ones, it is often worth considering just to make sure all bases are covered, so I do mention it, but it's certainly not out of some weird desire to offer people false hope nor upset folks like yourself.

In my experience dismissing possibilities due to our notions of how unlikely they are is often dangerously blinkering when it comes to perceiving what may actually be occurring. Freaks are more common than the 'official' stats guesstimate, because it is just a guesstimate, which is then taken as solid gospel truth when it's anything but.

As an example, many years ago I was taught by accredited professionals that due to the genetics involved in coloration, ginger female cats simply don't occur and tortoiseshell males occur rarely and are always infertile, but in reality I have now owned quite a few all-ginger females and have seen many dozens more, and have also known of fertile torty males, and seen plenty of torty males. The 'books' always make things out to be rarer than they are, in my experience, and so I speak from my experiences which may be totally alien to your own but still no less valid.

Personally I find crowing females are also more common than popular belief states, and certainly not some treasured and much-desired anomaly that people would find despair in not having, nor any real gain in having either; they hardly even qualify as some kind of party trick or interesting topic of conversation. It's just another behavior, there's nothing magical that restrains it to the male of the species, just like you get roosters who try to brood eggs, there's nothing magical restraining that behavior to females of the species. There are just strong predispositions, that's all, no universal rules. I find it far more odd that male turkeys also mother chicks and try to brood, since unlike male chickens they don't play a part in the offsprings' raising in the species' wild state. But, plenty of examples of all those anomalies on this forum and in the real world too. What there aren't are plenty of examples of people going out of their way to obtain crowing hens. Generally the lack of crowing is considered a perk of having hens, not a disappointment, lol.

About the 'cruel' people who 'hold out the false hope' regarding crowing females ---- in my perception they're just stating a fact, not trying to excite anyone about these supposedly super-rare freak chooks.

I'm 99.9999% sure nobody ever stated that 'sometimes females crow' in some bizarre attempt to be cruel.

Best wishes.