My son needs help....

[Landen]

My son is a true chicken lover!!!! We bought him 2 last spring that turned out to be roosters. We now have 6 more chicks purchased from My Pet Chicken that are 6 weeks old. He's concerned one of them is a rooster, which we can't have because we are in the city limits. Please look at the picture and let us know what you think.
The comb is barely existent but what's there is much more red than the other chicks' comb (although they are not the same breeds). Also the waddles are turning more red and look larger than the others' on different breeds. The chick is supposed to have been a Black Minorca, but he's beginning to think it's a barred rock because of the markings. Thanks!!

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Hey there- great to have you join the flock here at BYC. Can you take a couple more pictures and post them - a full body shot from the side (showing the legs) would be helpful in determining breed and also showing other gender clues.

 

[fshinggrl]

At first glance, it looks like a barred rock, right? It does look a wee bit too white to be a pullet but the legs look dark on the front of them. I think though that it is a little cockerel. You may want to wait a bit to see. Sorry about your bad luck so far!

 

[CollegeChicken]

i THINK its going to be a hen......didnt you buy 'sexed' chicks from MPC? obviously we've seen many cases where chicken sexers have been wrong and we ended up with the opposite gender of what we wanted, but Im just assuming considering your misfortune last year that you would NOT have bought straight run chicks.....anyway considering how it looks and considering you have no others of the same breed to compare it to I think its a little Pullet.

 

[Landen]

Could you tell me why you think a hen or rooster?? We are pretty clueless and wantig to learn from others more experienced. Thank you!

 

[aatx]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/798635/sight-sexing-barred-plymouth-rock-chicks-at-hatch

Being more white than black, I'd guess roo. Look here for more info in the above thread.

These are mine below - Dominiques, but still have the barred part. Females is the darker one, male the lighter one.

 

[CollegeChicken]

I really cant...after youve been doing for for X amount of years you just kind of know based on different physical characteristic, being familiar with certain breeds etc......the problem here is everyone is comparing this bird to different breeds and thats not a good way to guess gender because they all mature differently, have varying colors of red in their combs etc.... I also disagree with DARK colored Barred rocks being roos...Ive had several barred rocks and have one now..they are all hens and they are all darkly colored....I would honestly do whatever I could as a parent to discourage your child from getting any more attached to this bird than he already is until it is old enough to determine the gender with more accuracy.

 

[aatx]

. I also disagree with DARK colored Barred rocks being roos...Ive had several barred rocks and have one now..they are all hens and they are all darkly colored....

Have you seen anywhere on here where they've said dark are roos? Everything I've seen said lighter are the roos and darker are the hens.

This is from the link I gave (which was on Barred Rocks) - "Pullets are overall darker than Cockerels due to having only one copy of the barring gene. Cockerels have two copies and this provides them with more white in between the black bars, giving them the appearance of being a shade lighter."

 

[CollegeChicken]

yes it seems I scanned through the article too quickly and I had the gender coloring reversed.