New to chickens.....hens or roos? PICTURE HEAVY

[raven880]

After 18 yrs of raising parrots and finches, I have discovered the joys of chickens! But I have a lot to learn and one thing is how to determine their sex. I"ve read the various posts on the subject and think I have a pretty good idea of what to look for BUT just when I think I know, they change their behavior!

Since my birds all have to live in the house in the birdroom, I must limit myself to one rooster (and of course those are my favorites!) and 3 or 4 hens.
So, with the help of a friend who has an incubator, we have hatched 3 different breeds of chickens. I have a Silkie hen for sure. Now, I"m trying to decide which of the Frizzled Cochin bantam chicks I have here will be staying. Naturally the two I like best I suspect are roos. One that I would NEVER have chosen and seems to be a hen, has chosen ME for herself so if the ones I like are boys, she will stay. But she's soooo tiny. I'll have to save up a dozen eggs to have enough to eat! LOL
Anyway, here are some pics of the chicks and maybe you all can tell better than I can.
#1 no name yet

#2 Toffee

#3 Unnamed

#4 toffee and unnamed and cinnamon

#5 Lucy?

#6 no name same bird as #1

#7 Toffee standing,Reese bending down and Cinnamon head lower left

#8 Cinammon on left, Reese middle, Toffee behind

#9 Reese

We have 7 Key West chicks at my friends store and I'll be keeping my roo from them so no roos from this group will stay.
Thanks for your help!!!
Paula

 

[MS9325]

Number 3 and number 2 are roosters for sure, 1 is a girl and so is the red cochin.

 

[MS9325]

Cinnamon and Reese are boys as well, lucy is a girl

 

[Screebert]

Toffee and unnamed look like definite boys. Lucy looks like a girl.

Reese has long legs like a boy. Unnamed #6 looks like a girl.

 

[raven880]

Thanks all of you! You all picked them the same way I did unfortunately. 4 roos, 2 hens and my favs are the roos. Lucy is the one who has picked me and is not the color/pattern I wanted but I can't resist her personality. Even tho they all run to me when I go in the room, she hangs by me and insists on being held....even by my grandson as you could see in one picture. I so wanted to keep Toffee or Reese, mainly because they are the color I was trying to get...and Toffee loves to be held too. And I have a feeling Reese is going to be gorgeous when he's grown.
I may have to give one of them a try with my rooster from the Key West bunch and see if it will work out if they grow up together.

Paula

 

[justinszoo]

Just out of curiousity what kind of parrots do u have and r u keeping ur chickens with them?

I have a B&G macaw and a quaker

 

[raven880]

Quote:
Hi,
In that birdroom where the chickens are I have a Military Macaw, an Orange wing Amazon, a cockatoo, several lovebirds and a lot of zebra finches....and a wayward Kormoroner pigeon. UPstairs in the main part of the house I have an African grey, a cockatiel and an Indian Ringneck.

When I first put my first chicken(black Silkie) in the birdroom....in a cage to protect her....the parrots were absolutely HORRIFIED by that creature. The cockatoo went nuts screaming and prancing around with her wings outstretched. My macaw was jealous and came sliding down off her cage and stomping with great indignity over to the chicken's cage to get a look at "IT"...and beat the bars of the cage with her beak. The Amazon did the same. I thought then that I might not be able to keep the chicken. But after 2-3 wks I opened up Gypsy's cage and put her down on the floor and then stayed to watch what happened. The Amazon and cockatoo are bonded and almost never leave their 'treetops" but they followed Gypsies movement around the room by climbing from cage to stand to cage while never letting her out of eyesight. Major, the macaw, was a different story. I had greeted her first and held her and petted her so she got the attention first. But when Gypsy was released she immediately slid off her cage and stomped toward the chicken. I was ready with a net to grab her and pull her back. But she just walked over to Gypsy who was not frightened by the big bird as she'd been raised from a chick with macaws around, got up close and looked her over for a few seconds and seemed to say to herself, "Well, is THAT all there is to it?" and then turned and walked away.
After that it was no big deal. I've seen them both on the floor in the same spot with no problem. It is the pigeon who presents the biggest problem. I have a story about him up on a journal here:
http://journals.fotki.com/raven880/
and there are photos of the chickens, pigeon and one of Major in an album here (can also get to it from the links on the page above I think)
http://public.fotki.com/raven880/
If you click on a thumb nail you get a slightly larger photo and if you click on the link below that you can get a large photo.
I have more shots of all the birds but haven't gotten them up yet. Enjoy. It is definitely a zoo here. We used to show dogs and still have 6 (we just lost one of our babes to cancer) of them.
Paula