is this a barred plymouth rock?

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Hard to tell from that photo, but at least if it is a roo it won't be messing with your supply of unfertilized eggs anytime soon. There is a particular structure to rooster feathers on the neck that hens don't get (unless they're so imbalanced hormonally that they are completely rooster looking); if you compare this bird to your others and notice any different structure it's a good sign it's a roo. While females can also get those fancy neck feathers that have fringing to them with a narrow centre of normal feather type, roosters get very long fringes in comparison. I hope that makes sense, lol. If a boy that age is 'getting his roo feathers on' you will likely also see the shoulder/wing ones and rump hackling starting to emerge. They're a lot different from normal feathers. Anyway, best wishes.

These are chicks; they won't be developing hackle feathers for some months. You usually see saddle feathers before hackle feathers, but I wouldn't look for either before about 10-12 weeks. Do not try to sex chicks by using neck feather development.

I would guess your mystery bird is a female Black Sex Link. Here's an image search so you can see what they look like: http://tinyurl.com/lpe2zo4

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: Nice feed stores you've got! Ours would never let you even touch them.

Quote: I disagree. If a chick is well developed, not developmentally retarded, you can reliably sex by neck feather development. So, by all means, DO try to sex them by neck feather development. Just assume that the more you've "coddled" your birds, the slower they are in terms of development, so by all means, if you've raised them indoors, expect retarded development. It's only natural under such circumstances.

Only showing adult feather development after 10 to 12 weeks is a sure sign of being backwards in my experience, but then again I don't use heat lamps, and having a constant ambient temperature seems to set them back in feather development quite significantly.

If the animals were fed kelp regularly, after a few generations, chicks as young as four weeks can be showing adult feather development, but generally around the 6 week mark is more common. For those raised under very unnatural circumstances and fed very unnatural food, even almost a year old chicks can show immature feathering still.

But don't take my word for it, WalkingOnSunshine... Try it. I dare ya. lol

Best wishes to all.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Nice feed stores you've got! Ours would never let you even touch them.

I disagree. If a chick is well developed, not developmentally retarded, you can reliably sex by neck feather development. So, by all means, DO try to sex them by neck feather development. Just assume that the more you've "coddled" your birds, the slower they are in terms of development, so by all means, if you've raised them indoors, expect retarded development. It's only natural under such circumstances.

Only showing adult feather development after 10 to 12 weeks is a sure sign of being backwards in my experience, but then again I don't use heat lamps, and having a constant ambient temperature seems to set them back in feather development quite significantly.

If the animals were fed kelp regularly, after a few generations, chicks as young as four weeks can be showing adult feather development, but generally around the 6 week mark is more common. For those raised under very unnatural circumstances and fed very unnatural food, even almost a year old chicks can show immature feathering still.

But don't take my word for it, WalkingOnSunshine... Try it. I dare ya. lol

Best wishes to all.

I don't coddle my chicks, and they are outside in the wind and often snow. That's because Mama Hen takes care of my babies. I would guess that's more "natural" than your method--since you are making a point about what's natural and what's not in chicken raising.

Your method for sexing chicks by neck feathers before they're even fully feathered is not a common method of sexing chicks. I personally have never seen any difference in neck feather development on chicks that aren't fully feathered yet, and sex feathers only come in after they are old enough to take on sex characteristics. This is also not something I've heard from anyone else other than you. Forgive my skepticism--I also have seen people on BYC telling people to sex chicks by seeing how loud they squawk and hanging a wedding ring on a string over them. Photos would help, if you have them.

 

[hope4rainbow]

I'm still curious how kelp is so magical that it does 65 wonderous things. I can see better nuutrition, but some of yhese claims are sort of....odd for someone like me to try to wrap my head around. What if out of all of these things, one is undesireable? Can you fix it by denying the pinch of kelp? What if one bird gets a lot of pinches and the other birds don't get much? We have a couple of piggy birds. And our one cockerel doesn't get until the girls are completely done. He wouldn't get any.....

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

I'm still curious how kelp is so magical that it does 65 wonderous things. I can see better nuutrition, but some of yhese claims are sort of....odd for someone like me to try to wrap my head around. What if out of all of these things, one is undesireable? Can you fix it by denying the pinch of kelp? What if one bird gets a lot of pinches and the other birds don't get much? We have a couple of piggy birds. And our one cockerel doesn't get until the girls are completely done. He wouldn't get any.....

Kelp, apple cider vinegar, and DE are the panaceas of the chicken world. I believe this just the same way that I believe the water used in homeopathy "remembers" the "active ingredient" but forgets all about the poop that it's had in it.

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: Hey, there's no need to take offense, lol! And no, your method is not "more natural" than mine; in fact you've left me wondering what on earth you think my method is?

And no, I was not making a point about what's natural and what's not in chicken raising. You missed the point I was making. Perhaps re-reading my post would help, but I will try to simplify it for you: I was making a point about the differences between birds' feathering when raised in constantly warm ambient temperatures as opposed to those raised in more natural circumstances.

I thought I'd repeated those words too many times in that post, and might give offense because someone might think I was repeating it based on some belief that they were dense, but you still missed it, so I guess not, lol!

My method of sexing by the neck feathers IS actually common. Every sexing thread I've posted in, most people are looking at the feathers and crest and wattles. Some few are looking at the feet, lol, and some look at the stance... But you're the first I've heard say anything about a wedding ring on a string as a method of sexing. How does that work?

The chicks are well feathered in the more recent pic, but if you read the thread in full, you will perhaps understand that I was generally referring more to a future method of sexing, and at the time this thread was current, before you apparently resurrected it after much digging, the sexing method being discussed primarily was the usual sort involving crest development. The talk was all over the place and generalized, I grant you, so it's not hard to see how it could have confused you. I always look for sex feathers even at that age, as I got used to seeing it on mine, and it's been strange to see some birds at 6 months or so still not showing gender development, as is quite common with birds raised in heat lamp brooders.

You're also wrong about "sex feathers only come in after they're old enough to take on sex characteristics" --- in fact, as the majority of breeders will tell you, the crest and wattles show development FIRST in most cases.

As for photos, a good gander about the threads would show you any number of mature male feathers, and perhaps your own roosters have them too? I've been trying to get pics for a while, to demonstrate the typical male feathering to those who don't know what it looks like, but it's not high on my list of priorities, and I don't yet have a good camera, but will see if I can get some soon. I took some a while back but they were too blurry to suffice. Crappy phone camera, more's the pity. Best wishes.
Quote: Howdy stranger.

(I don't recall having talked with you before, which puts a strange spin on some of your phrasing).

If you mean "is any shade of the spectrum of nutrition undesirable" then it's a very technical 'yes', because (of course) anything is harmful when it's in too great an excess or too great an insufficiency. This is nutritional law. Few things flout it. The key is balance and as natural a source as possible. Kelp provides both.

Also, if you want a hen to stop laying, because she is injured or ill, kelp can be something worth not giving as it promotes laying, just like layer pellets. Some hens will merely use it to heal and recover but others, particularly high production commercial layers, who will often lay until they die or nearly so, will use it to keep laying as that's how their system's geared --- to use all possible intake to create all possible output, at the expense of the animal's complete health; they can still be pretty healthy but never last long. Since I choose to not keep that type of hen, I always give convalescent birds kelp and have no issues. But if you have that type of hen, you'd have to experiment accordingly.

I myself am curious about something you said; what are these "65 wonderous things"? Also, please elaborate where "magic" comes into nutrition and the effect of vitamins and minerals on the endocrine system? It's amazing, for sure, but "magic"? No.

But I guess everything seems like magic until you know how it works. Even then, some simple things still seem pretty amazing.

I am also curious as to why you are "still curious" ---- you have never asked me before, as far as I recall. So I can only assume your prolonged bout of unsatisfied curiosity must be due to either an inability or refusal to either test it yourself or do the research yourself? I understand your reluctance and/or incapacity in those areas if you are experiencing anything of the sort, it's common enough! But I strongly encourage you to both test and research it yourself.

As for the research, please remember that the internet does not yet contain the whole world of knowledge; delve a little deeper than popular sites, they tend to only represent popular mainstream thoughts and beliefs, which as history shows are always wrong in some areas. And please, do test it yourself. We'd be a fine bunch of superstitious ignoramuses if none of us ever tested anything, just swallowed everything we were told like universal truth, as long as it arrived at the end of the apparently hallowed 'link'. So many people believe unquestioning in every and any study and never read the fine print which often paints the opposite picture to what the supposed and touted outcome of the study is claimed to be. All they remember is the headline, lol!

By all means, if you want, give one bird many pinches and the another less and another none. But before you do so, why not conduct a simple bit of research on malnutrition, complete nutrition, and over-nutrition? Saves time to say the least. Of course, watching what happens to the animals and their offspring is educational in itself.

Not that I haven't provided this information before, and many, many times at that... But some folks are seriously averse to finding their own information; not that I am accusing you of this, just making a generalized observation. It's like they think information was only invented after the advent of the internet, and only exists in cyberspace, and anything that cannot be linked to therefore does not exist; it's practically a superstition; such willful ignorance is a pet peeve of mine, or would be if I was naive enough to still be bothered with such, because that sort of person refuses to do their own homework and tends to stalk around after you like they have no hobbies or life. I wonder if they have forgotten how to use the wondrous thing known as a book. They still contain much pertinent information not provided on the internet, but alas, one cannot link to a real book, therefore it's not real to some.

Along with all the things kelp can do, it can also, like basically everything, do harm in excess, because it contains 'nutrition'. Kelp is a collection of nutritive substances. So if you research what is in kelp, and vitamins and minerals in general, and research what lack of each and excess of each will do to an animal, there is your answer, or rather a plethora of answers, and it applies to everything in any animal's diet, including your own, whether or not it includes kelp.

It is indeed magical, and yet it's all just plain old not-so-simple nutrition, which in fact science is still discovering more and more about. Valuable information for us all.

Here is a link to get you started on that quest. Happy hunting and best wishes.
Quote:

 

[donrae]

My broody hen raised chicks don't have sex feathers that young. I thought the whole point of sex feathers in males is when they hit "puberty" so to speak, the youngest I've seen them is around 3 months, give or take. I usually have a good idea by then who's a rooster by comb development, leg thickness, sometimes color depending on the bird, and overall behavior. But never sex feathers that young. I also don't see them on birds on these boards. There's a great post with 6 10 week old roosters where the OP took great photos, the birds were just starting to get sex feathers. Then again, I don't know how those birds were raised, brooded or broody hen.

 

[Anna6]

Thank you for the info! Hopfully this is a better picture... we are calling this baby Darth Peeper.



I was hoping to catch some of the brownish feathers coming in on its neck. I am hoping that having possible roosters in my hen house won't mess with my production of non fertilized eggs. I'm not looking for more babies. Like I said, I'm new to the world of chicken raising so any and all suggestions or info is awesome.

those big black feet remind me of my Jersey Giants I just ate.

 

[Little Ondine]

My barred rocks didn't look much like that when they were that age. I ordered mine because the original batch of chicks I got at the local feed store had them all labeled wrong. Like what was supposed to be a leghorn turned out to be a white EE and my black australorp ended up being a black copper maran. I REALLY wanted barred rocks so I went to the extra expense of ordering them. (They are so pretty.)

I think the feed store just gets a mixed bag from the hatchery and then take a good guess as to what breed they are.

I make a point to get mine direct from a hatchery from here on out.

 

[sparky chicken]

I agree.