Hi everyone! So right now, I have a neighbor who can here what i'm doing... I don't know the sexes of my chicks yet. I think Chatterbox is a girl, because she's quite small, and i'm pretty sure Intuite and Gizmo are girls too because they were a couple of the smallest out of a entire flock of them. I really have grown attached to all my birds rooster or not and wouldn't want to give one up. You're alloud to own chickens here, you can have a rooster but it has to be more than 100 feet from your house and 300 from your neighbors, and where the chickens coop is, it isn't that distance. I can probably "sneak" a rooster in my backyard as long as it is not "cockadoodledooing" all day. Have you ever heard of a quite rooster. Also, any tips to keep the chickens quite during the day? None of the neighbors have complained yet (there are also lots of wild parrots which luckily muffle the chickens), but it's better to be safe than sorry. So you find your chickens are quite when you give them treats or boredom breakers? Also, Speckles seems to be the leader of the flock, and since she was 2 weeks old, she has had a bald red spot above her beak and under her chin (like where the rubbery red thing goes lol forgot what it's called).
Without pics we really can't help you in determining their true sex. As for a "quiet" rooster? Hmmmm, I don't think so!
Backyard Poultry magazine recently ran an article on how to keep roosters quiet. Honestly, none of the ideas seemed practical to me. We've had several roosters, and my current one is "quiet". By quiet, I mean that he doesn't crow all day long over every little thing, but he still crows periodically throughout the day. Bringing out treats definitely gets him crowing. They crow a lot in the very early mornings, too. Sorry to be discouraging, but you can't really hide a rooster. I've heard of rooster collars that can help. I know nothing about them or if they're even humane. Same with de-crowing surgery. Good luck! I hope you get some ideas from others that are in your situation and found solutions!
Thanks. If I can, i'll post a picture of the chicks later. If one of them is a rooster, I might try to build an "insulated" coop to keep the noise down, or I might just sell it (to someone who wants a pet rooster).
I agree that roosters are hard to keep quiet, but some breeds are notorious for making a non-stop racket and others just an occasional crow. I got a Swedish Flower roo because he was reportedly quieter and have had him now for a couple years. He is docile and gentle with the hens and really only crows on rare occasion favoring lots of clucking to get the girls' attentions. And I do believe that there is a thread on here somewhere about those anti-crow collars. Good luck!