Need to know gender of 12 week Delaware

[addictedtochickens]

I was raising Delaware roosters for science fair and didn't want to eat any hens by accident. When I was reading it said that hens would have black tail feathers instead of barred feathers and this one has black feathers but the tail looks wrong. Here are some pictures

Here is a comb/ head shot

and here is a neck feather shot because I read it may show if it was male or female??? The feathers are rounded incase the picture doesn't show well.

 

[M To The Maxx]

Roo

 

[addictedtochickens]

Thanks. Are the tail feathers different because it is hatchery quality?

 

[Illia]

I see a whole bunch of cockerels.

This one doesn't have barring because it is a Columbian Rock, not a Delaware. That or the hatcheries really have bad breeding.

 

[ChickenWisperer]

Roos. All roos.

 

[punky rooster]

Quote:
x2

 

[Cowgirl71]

All roosters.

 

[ranchhand]

The one in question is a rooster. I'm looking at legs, comb, wattles, tail and hackle feathers to make that call.

 

[sharol]

When I was wrestling with determining the gender of my 2 Dels this summer, a breeder said that males had barred tail feathers (like the bird in the background in your 2nd picture) ON THE ADULTS. Females have feathers that are black with white edges. BUT you can't use tailfeathers as a determining factor until they get their adult feathers. At that time I had one bird with barred feathers and one with white edged black tail feathers. Both turned out to be girls and are both laying.

On the same token, those tailfeathers are certainly curved downward compared to my girls' tails. http://picasaweb.google.com/sharol46/Almost14Weeks# Lucy and Angel are the 2 Dels at 14 weeks in these pictures. Note that their tails are much shorter than your bird and don't curve down. My girls came from MPC so they are hatchery quality.

 

[addictedtochickens]

I still have about two months to wait on these so I guess I should know for sure then. Delawares are so pretty I just didn't know I would want a bunch of Delaware hens when I got them. Chicken math is becoming a serious problem for me, I have 25 golden sexlink hens coming in march.

Thank you for all of the posts.