Holy sudden surge of hormones Batman!

[memcwhit]

Here are some pictures of the difference in combs. The 2 that I got were the most drastic big/small. Maybe seeing them can help determine if it means anything or not. The first is my favorite, suspected female. The second is one of the separated ones. Sorry about the quality. Phones don't appreciate moving targets and every time the flash would go, they would suddenly become obsessed with my ring making it take several attempts to get their heads....lol.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, it's hard to get a decent picture. They just don't stay still long enough.

To me, both of those look like roos at 5 weeks. Not just the comb but wattles. I really do know how hard it is to get good photos, but a full body shot and a decent shot showing legs could help identify them too. At that age, many things are clues not dead giveaways. But I really don't like the looks of those wattles.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Sorry. Some of the language can be hard to interpret. You never know what the people you are talking to on here really understand or know. We all have to start somewhere.

Straight run means as they are hatched. You can order all females from a hatchery, all males, or mixed. With straight run, they just pull them from the bin and put them in the box without regard to sex. You never know what you will get. Some people will get mostly roosters and swear it is rigged. Some people like me get mostly or even all hens and think it is fair. I suspect some hatcheries are more ethical about it than others. But straight run means you don't know what you will get.

Many hatcheries have minimums they will ship, usually 15 or 25. That’s so you have enough to keep each other warm during shipping. If the weather is supposed to be cold, some hatcheries will include additional chicks in the shipment to keep the others warm. These are called packing peanuts. Since the hatcheries have a lot more males than females left over, these are practically always males. Vent sexing is not 100% accurate so you can get a female when you expected a male from this.

Sometimes they have extra chicks after they are all sorted. These may or may not be female or straight run. I have had a hatchery ship one more of what I ordered. They had some left over so it doesn’t really cost them anything. Sometimes a chick dies in shipment. If they ship an extra of what was ordered, then they still have a happy customer. I received an extra pullet that way once. These are different than the ones that are shipped just for extra warmth. Some people in here really get offended if you call these extra chicks packing peanuts. So let’s just stick with packing peanuts being extra chicks shipped to keep them warmer.

With the red sex link roosters. If you set the genetics up right, all the female chicks at hatch will have red down and male chicks will have yellow down. It’s pretty easy to determine at hatch which are male and which are female. The yellow males grow up white. It depends on what the parents are, but many red sex link roosters will be colored like a Delaware. So if someone hatched out a bunch of red sex links, they could have unloaded all the males on you.

 

[memcwhit]

Gotcha! Again, learning soooooooo much!

Haha, as much as I hope we don't have a whole lot of roos, given what he paid, we can still sell them for a pretty large profit, although I would have loved to have had a hen or 2 for eggs. We have 8 hens and no eggs right now. 2 are molting, 1 is 9 months and still hasn't laid, and the rest I think are scared off by the cold nights we've had.

Here are the best pics that I could get of random chicks in the run because of course, with 17 chicks, it's pretty much mass chaos...lol. Btw, the one in the background of the second pic is the same one in the first pic above.

 

[Nigellas]

Yeah, all the ones you posted look like roos, sorry. I do wish you luck selling them - people around where I live never pay for a roo unless it's a fancy breed.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't do the broilers, Cornish X, Cornish Cross, whatever you want to call them. For those that do, do these look like the broilers at 5 weeks?

 

[memcwhit]

Yeah, all the ones you posted look like roos, sorry. I do wish you luck selling them - people around where I live never pay for a roo unless it's a fancy breed.

No reason to be sorry! Around here, you can usually sell them, although they don't go for as much as hens do, I guess for the same reason that I've already got that one person interested and why I wanted to keep a roo back for myself--flock protection. I know of several people around here who treasure their hyper aggressive roos because of the coyotes and foxes that are prevalent in the area. I should be able to sell most of them pretty easily.

Also, for educational reasons, what makes you say that they're all roos? Like I said, I'm very new and want to learn as much as possible. I was fully prepared to wait until they crowed or laid an egg to figure out what was what...lol. Regardless, I'm still keeping my favorite one, and I no longer feel bad that I named the one that passed "Edward Scissor Beak". I kept worrying that it could be a hen and I would give her a complex.

 

[Indigosands]

oh dear. I agree, I believe you got saddled with a bunch of roosters also. The reason that everyone is saying roosters is because a hen would never have that kind of comb and wattles development that early and if she did, she most certainly wouldn't be that red in the comb until she was nearing egg laying age. If you don't mind my asking, how much did he pay for them? Little enough that raising them out as freezer stock would be cost effective?

 

[memcwhit]

Ah, OK. Thanks! Oh yeah. If we managed to get $2 each for them, we will have made a profit...lol. Roosters usually go for $8-10 in this area, so if we wait a few more weeks, then we'll be happy. I also know of someone who is willing to trade a couple of hens for some, which is a-OK with me, especially now that I can be fairly sure I've got a bunch of boys. Still keeping my favorite though, regardless. That one and I have really bonded for whatever reason. Whenever I handle it, it's happy to just chill on my arm/shoulder for as long as I'll let it.

 

[Indigosands]

Sounds like you'll come out of this fine, then. I love roosters, they are quite amusing lawn ornaments. I'd have more if I was allowed!