o wow..well glad she's not a rooster,and excited she's almost ready to lay! but i guess i gotta do my research on barred rocks, i wanted dominiques because mypetchicken.com said they are medium sized, nuturing and docile and pretty good egg layers. i love their personalities now so that's great, was hoping they'd be a little less skittish, but they can be kind of daring at times too. o..they do this thing.. it's probably normal but i'm such a newb.. they hop up and fluff their feathers all up in front of each other like a dominance display..is that what that is? it almost looks like they are gonna start to fight but they don't.
I have both Dominique and Partridge Rock. I don't find much difference in temperment. I was going to say that on Dominiques you would know right away if one is a boy or girl. We had received 5 pullets from Welp last summer but one was definitely a different color than the others. Sure enough, he ended up being a roo. I like both breeds although the Dominiques peck me when I reach under them for eggs and the Rocks never do.