Is this rooster behaviour?

[brightonchicks]

My chicks are a month old and the 2 that I believe are roosters are acting like they want to fight, is this how young rooster act?
Top 2 pics I think are rooster, the bottom pics I believe are hens.



They only do this with each other. The other 2 I believe are hens and they don't fight.

 

[chooks4life]

Your guesses on gender look correct, but fighting is not a reliable gender trait, both genders will fight from under week one onwards for the rest of their lives.

Sounds like you've just got some very laid back girls there, at the moment anyway; it's not uncommon to have very laid back boys and very aggressive girls, or a complete mix with both genders spending a lot of time fighting. Their levels of aggression depend on many factors, from family line to breed, past experiences, nutrition status, hormonal levels, light levels, and so forth, as well as plain old individual character.

Best wishes.

 

[Kelsie2290]

X2, both roos and hens will spar especially as chicks, sparing is more the temperament etc of the individual chicks than gender. Of your chicks agree the first two are boys, third is a girl, not sure on the fourth, would keep an eye on it as a potential cockerel also.

 

[chooks4life]

X2 on the fourth chick, those spikes are rather large and swollen for a pullet.

 

[brightonchicks]

Thank you.

 

[brightonchicks]

X2 on the fourth chick, those spikes are rather large and swollen for a pullet.

The first and last pic are the same age, could the first just be developing faster? Oh I hope not, sure don't need 3 roos! Already don't know what I'm going to do with 2

 

[chooks4life]

The first and last pic are the same age, could the first just be developing faster? Oh I hope not, sure don't need 3 roos! Already don't know what I'm going to do with 2

Oh dear, just looked closely at them all, and that's a fair bit of crest and wattle on all of them... They may all be males.

It's pretty normal, well, completely common to have at least one boy and at least one girl that developmentally are twice as far along as their siblings, in terms of secondary gender characteristics... That's a lot of development for chooks only a month old, though.

But, some breeds of females show development that is almost male in its extremity, so it's possible you've got some of those genetics in your flock --- what bloodlines do they have?

Best wishes. Hope you get at least two girls out of this. :/

 

[brightonchicks]

Oh dear, just looked closely at them all, and that's a fair bit of crest and wattle on all of them... They may all be males.

It's pretty normal, well, completely common to have at least one boy and at least one girl that developmentally are twice as far along as their siblings, in terms of secondary gender characteristics... That's a lot of development for chooks only a month old, though.

But, some breeds of females show development that is almost male in its extremity, so it's possible you've got some of those genetics in your flock --- what bloodlines do they have?

Best wishes. Hope you get at least two girls out of this. :/

Not sure about bloodlines, they may be a mix but 2 are suppose to be RIR and 2 are suppose to be Black Australorps. My hen went broody and I bought 4 eggs for her to hatch out, we don't have a rooster or should I say didn't have a rooster at that time. Man I sure hope we don't have more than 2

 

[chooks4life]

Not sure about bloodlines, they may be a mix but 2 are suppose to be RIR and 2 are suppose to be Black Australorps. My hen went broody and I bought 4 eggs for her to hatch out, we don't have a rooster or should I say didn't have a rooster at that time. Man I sure hope we don't have more than 2

Alrighty, well hatchery-bred RIR females do tend to have a fair bit of wattle and comb from a fairly young age, so there's hope yet, for one of those potential RIRs anyway, and probably for one of the Australorps. Time will tell.

Generally, strong secondary gender trait development at quite a young age is a good sign that they're really thriving, I found that the more I learned about keeping them healthy, the younger and younger secondary gender traits became easily discernible.

Best wishes.