Hen or Roo?

[Kolijah]

Is this a roo or a hen (the brown one)? I thought she was a hen, but within the last month she's gotten huge (only one bigger is my rooster- the guy in the picture)) and it looks like little lumps where the spurs are possibly starting... I'm hoping I'm just being paranoid. I'm still new to the whole chicken thing.

 

[junebuggena]

Is this a roo or a hen (the brown one)? I thought she was a hen, but within the last month she's gotten huge (only one bigger is my rooster- the guy in the picture)) and it looks like little lumps where the spurs are possibly starting... I'm hoping I'm just being paranoid. I'm still new to the whole chicken thing.

Look at those back feathers. See how both birds have the same long, thin feathers on their backs, and they have the same shade of dark red on their wings/shoulders? Those are things only males have.

 

[KeyFlock]

How old are they? Looks like it may be a roo.

 

[Kolijah]

Uuuugh... that's what I was thinking. The feathers look very similar, and just started recently...

They're actually brothers and were hatched end of January last year (same rooster). The white one became very obvious this summer it was a male. The other one stayed fairly small until this last month. Never has crowed or made any rooster noises (the white one does all the time though). I'm also positive that I've seen the white rooster 'mount' this one too.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

The red one hasn't crowed and gets mounted by the white rooster because the white boy is dominant. When he mounts the other boy, he's showing him who's boss.

And he most certainly is a male...no doubt about it.

 

[katiedarling]

Well, I can say I've only been keeping chickens since March, but I ended up with 2 beautiful roosters. The first I had no idea until it was painfully obvious. The second, I knew what to look for. I agree with the other responders that it looks like a gorgeous rooster. Take a close look at the hackle & saddle feathers. If they're pointy, you have a boy. If they're spoon shaped, girl. As far as crowing, if the white one's the dominant one, he may not start crowing for a while. At least that was my experience. Now that the younger one is "big enough"(still a midget by comparison

) he'll crow a bit and the big one will shut him up or they try to out crow each other from opposite sides of their yard. The big one usually finishes it. They are quite entertaining. And they both turned out to be my favorite birds. Either way, both your boys are quite handsome!

 

[Kolijah]

Guess I need to re-home my brown boy then. I only have five hens so two roosters is a no no. Thank you for the help everyone!

 

[showinbirds]

Both roosters

 

[drumstick diva]

Both roosters, and one rooster needs 10 hens to keep him occupied, otherwise they breed the same poor girls to the point of damage and worse.