Is this really a hen?

[Pidgey104]

rooster and it looks mixed

 

[vonchick]

Thank you everyone for your responses! I'd had my doubts about this bird for a while, but had clung to the thought that somehow starting to feed laying mash in a couple of months would solve everything.

We bought 3 "purebred" chicks from the feedstore and got 3 mix breed roosters, so that's the end of buying feedstore birds.

Our problem now is that this bird, and to some extent the 2 other cockerels, are becoming harmful to our other birds. We have 4 silkie mix pullets (at least I think they're pullets....) that are a good bit smaller than the cockerels, and they're being pretty constantly harassed. We don't have the funds at this time for a second pen, and are thinking of letting the cockerels run free. The problem is that the next door neighbor lets his chickens run and a lot of the time they're in our yard. His birds look great, but when he pens them the conditions are substandard at best, and we can't be sure they're healthy. We're afraid that once we let our birds out and they mingle with the next door flock we shouldn't let them back in with our other birds. Does anyone have advice?

 

[Mtn Cur]

"ALL" of your black birds are hens. What you're seeing is just the pecking order. The black sex links are derived from a Red rooster and a Barred rock hen. At birth the rooster will have a white spot or speck on the back of there head. The hen will be all black. When growing, the rooster will be a very light colored barred rock pattern. The hens can differ a lot, even from the same hatch, but will always be prodominantly black. I have 10 bls and some have yellowish heads, some have burnt orange backs, and some are all black.

And the reason she is so nasty is because she is half barred rock. BSL's are much more aggressive than RSL's
I pm'ed you a site to look at other peoples sexlinks.

 

[sheila3935]

you could advertise them on Craigslist to find homes for them. Have rehomed 7 roos this year this way. Luckly all mine have gone to good homes. I just put if they are not going to be used for rooster and you are going to use them for meat dont tell me

 

[Sanebychicks]

I would think that unless you are getting the chicks from a feedstore who really is very uninformed about not only their chicks, but also their source of chicks - sex-linked is sex-linked. For instance down color is genetically linked - so for example, a chick that is black is female and the male would be yellow. This is a very obvious way to establish sex at hatching and is often used with multiple crosses of chickens. So you can have two chickens from the same hatch and they can look very different from each other because they are well, mutts. Very common in production birds - again, genetically engineered so that sexing is obvious.

Sorry, maybe I am not getting what behaviour you are most worried about. To me, all of them still look like they are pullets and aggressiveness and comb/wattle size can vary by mix. Are you absolutely sure they are cockerels at this point? This "sexing" question seems to be an area of the biggest concern. I know it was for me when I was worried one of mine was not a pullet. I can't have roo's so, I was really scared I was going to have to get rid of her and had become pretty attached so I didn't like that idea much. In the end, she's just a hen with very large comb and wattles.

 

[Smoky73]

your black bird with red is a roo. Females do not generaly get red in the wing area ever. If it is showing red in the wing (bow?) top part of wing where that one shows red, its a rooster.

 

[Mtn Cur]

Quote:
So..... your saying you can determine that's a rooster just by wing color? Do you see saddle feathers?

 

[silkiechicken]

I think most people are saying rooster because the OP's birds are only 12-13 weeks old in the pics. If these birds were 16-20 weeks, the opinions would probably differ.

 

[vonchick]

Wow - I knew I'd enjoy the chickens, but they've turned out to be far more fascinating animals than I had imagined! I've been looking at saddle feathers, and one of my 3 feed store birds is definitely a rooster - his saddle feathers are sharply pointed. The black and white bird has rounded saddle feathers, and my black bird appears to be, if you'll excuse the expression, neither fish nor fowl. Blackbird's saddle feathers are somewhere in between; I'd call them oval. Thank you again to everyone who took the time to weigh in on this. I intend to revisit the issue in 6 to 8 weeks. In the mean time I've made sure there are plenty of places in the pen that the smaller birds can escape to when the big ones get aggressive.

 

[Smoky73]

Quote:
So..... your saying you can determine that's a rooster just by wing color? Do you see saddle feathers?

Yes, I guess I am. It is the same in my Dutch bantams. By the age that those birds are in the pics, as they get their adult feathers the red wing feathers will be your first clue that they are boys. The birds are still too young to get their saddle feathers in so that cannot be a factor to consider that they do not have them at this moment. At 2 months old, my Dutch bantam males have gotten in red wing feathers...that is the first sign. None of the females will have them. Red in wings is usually a great sex indicator.
Granted, keep in mind I did say USUALLY, there are always exceptions, though I have never seen a female with red in the wings like that.