None of my 5 month chickens have wattles or combs! Even the suspected roo

Rooster_Tyranny

Songster
Sep 2, 2018
121
608
157
Utah
I have 6 5 month old chickens: 2 SLWs, 2 Buckeyes, a White Crested Black Polish and a BL Polish. The BL is showing all of the signs of a rooster (at least appearance-wise) except he doesn't have any wattles! He barley has two pale pink stumps (so does my WCB), if he's sick he's certainly not acting like it in any other way. My two Buckeyes have tiny combs and wattles that are barley reddening up, but they also have peacombs so I don't know that's normal or not. The SLWs have wattles that are finally starting to grow, but they still seem considerably smaller than all of the other pictures of chickens their age that I've seen.

Is this a sign of lack of nutrition? All of them are active and healthy. I feed them Purina's non medicated grower crumbles, and they have access to it all day. I did have a blunder where they would only eat so far down out of their old feeder and refused to eat the rest (I don't know why, it was just a basic feeder trough), so while I thought they had access to food all day they really didn't. I've gotten a new feeder since then.

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Shortened day light period impacts hormonal levels and tends to retard maturation. Day length is increasing, and combs and wattles will start to grow and brighten. Polish cockerels in my experience have been slow in reaching maturity. I doubt that anything is wrong with your flock. You are doing all the right things.
 
Shortened day light period impacts hormonal levels and tends to retard maturation. Day length is increasing, and combs and wattles will start to grow and brighten. Polish cockerels in my experience have been slow in reaching maturity. I doubt that anything is wrong with your flock. You are doing all the right things.
Good to know, thank you!
 

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