Need help with mystery crower - Buff Orpington or Black Australorp

[HEChicken]

I'll be interested to hear how this mystery turns out. I went back and looked at the Australorp and while the hackle feathers look suspiciously pointy IMO, the saddle feathers and tail look hennish and the comb is certainly not overly developed so....since the middle one in your pic is a BSL and there should have been no doubt of its gender at hatch, perhaps you really do just have a crowing hen. I understand about being a good neighbor and all but if the crowing is only first thing in the morning and only before they are let out of the coop, I'd be inclined to hold onto all of them until you know for certain one is a boy AND he is crowing all day long and making a nuisance of himself. Any roosters I've had have usually started off with just a few crows first thing in the morning but as time goes on it has become an all-day event and at that point I had to do something about it before the official complaints started arriving. It doesn't sound like yours is being bothersome just now so I would take a wait-and-see attitude. You'd hate to get rid of one and find out later it was a girl after all.

 

[swmalone]

Nope, no roosters around here. In fact I'm pretty sure I'm the only one with chickens for some distance. Well all my chicks are down so time to go see if the sex link laid me an egg. The weird thing about the australorp is if she is a roo she is a big chicken aka scaredy cat. She doesn't make a sound when I can see her at least, she is at the bottom of the pecking order, and she runs away from us.

 

[swmalone]

I agree. I want to take the wait and see. The only thing is I have some family coming to visit at the end of the month and if I have a rooster I can send it home with them to live on the farm in SW Idaho. He would have a good life and not end up in the freezer. I guess I can still wait and if need be take him there or ship him there.

 

[HEChicken]

Hopefully by the end of the month it will have become clearer since that is still 2-3 weeks away. Perhaps take new photos then and post and see what everyone thinks then? Or set up a babycam in your coop and spy on them in the wee morning hours

 

[swmalone]

I have to figure out how to spy on them. It is so hard to get pictures of the australorp. It is just hard to get a picture that shows good detail with all that black and she doesn't like to pose, but the buff and the sex link love having their pictures taken so they run in front of the camera right as I try to snap a picture of the australorp. I will keep an eye and ear on things and keep updating this post with additional discoveries.

 

[MinnerBuckwheat]

Just grab a hand full of feed and toss it on the ground, he/she should come running up to eat!

 

[thesweetone]

If you're still trying to confirm that the crowing is coming from the Buff, could you house it somewhere apart from the others for a night or two? Then you could confirm by the direction the sound is coming from. Not that it will help determine gender but it would confirm whether it's your BO or your Aust?

 

[bufforp89]

Its the buff...I have had a few girly looking buff cockrals.

 

[empireranch]

Both Buff and Australorp look like girls to me - can't tell on the third one from the picture provided. On a side note, my welsummer "crows" every morning at 5.50am to wake me up (I assume) as they are "cooped" up all night. Perhaps this is happening in your situation?

 

[swmalone]

bufforp89
Today 5:07 pm
Its the buff...I have had a few girly looking buff cockrals.

Do you have any pictures of confirmed buff pullets and cockerels at different ages that you could post? It seems that buffs are all over the place. I have seen pullets that looks like cockerels, cockerels that look like pullets, huge combs, tiny combs, etc, etc, etc.

I have come to the conclusion that I'm not going to make any drastic decision until the crowing is happing all the time and I can somewhat be certain it is a roo, or I start seeing eggs from all of them.

As for trying to isolate the buff from the others I have a tiny little yard and my only coop is a chicken ark I move around the yard. I don't really have any other safe place to put her for the evening.

Like I said would love to see more pictures, but I am really don't want to jump to conclusions. We only have 3 chickens and they are pets. If I had a bunch and was more interested in the eggs and meat I would probably make a more lethal decision.​