Possible for chicks to "crow" less than a week of age?!!Sound clip pg2

[chickenlovernoteater]

I will try to explain this the best I can..

I really really didn't want roosters this year, so I bought some hatching eggs from someone who claimed they were red sex links. As I stared at the incubator for hours during hatching, white chick after white chick pops out, then white chick with red hed (?!), black chicks

, and finally out of 28 eggs, 2 red chicks. I was iffy about the viability of sexing these chicks, so I kept two reds, two blacks, and bought a pullet RIR and Americana at the feed store to insure I have SOME kind of female.

Last night one of the black chicks started making a weird noise. It sounded like " chi-cheep, chi-cheep, chi-cheep, chi-cheep, CHEEEEP CHEEEEP CHEEEEP!" and it was so loud, it was like the chick was holding a microphone to it's beak! I kinda cocked my head at it and went on about my business. Then it did it again, and I saw it! It didn't have it's neck quite as crooked when a rooster crows, but it looked like it's neck was poofed out and it was standing as tall as it could. As I stood there staring in shock at my 5 day old chick possible crow, then one of my beloved please-be-a-pullet-red-sex-links started doing it!

Only two chicks out of my six I have are doing it, and this morning with the sun breaking over the horizon, these two chicks are singing this magnified, very loud song that I have NEVER heard come from a chick. It is not a distress cheep.. I would swear its the beginning of a crow, but I am hoping someone on here will tell me otherwise...

 

[write2caroline]

I dunno - My lil roos crowed around 5 weeks. My big roo didn't crow til 12- weeks - thought he would never crow and now I wish he would be QUIET for once in his life! Razzmatazz my roo is so obnoxious and LOUD!!! I would wait and see.
Caroline

 

[SilkiesAndSuch]

Wow. Don't know what to tell you other than I really don't think that they are trying to crow at such a young age. I mean, the odds of you having the only two crowing chicks of billions is really slim....Maybe they have something lodged in their throat? Maybe there isn't anything wrong with them. They very well might be trying to crow. I don't know but I doubt it.

 

[Crazyland]

i didn't think that was possible! I have 2 roos outside and one started 2 weeks ago and the other just yesterday. They are over 5 months old! The rest of my chicks have not done anything but peep-peep.

 

[smallcitychick]

If it's a sex link it can't be a roo. Males are hatched a different color than females. So you shouldn't have to worry.

 

[theFox]

If the person providing the eggs isn't very care full you can be seeing the results of more than one roo having mated with the hen those eggs were from.

Any sex link is the result of cross breeding, if those eggs were actually from a sex link hen they will not be reliably sexed by their color etc....

 

[LaSombra]

It all depends on the roo. I have one that started to crow at about 6 wks of age and another that started crowing at 5 months. They're only 3 weeks apart in age. I have a chick that I hatched in january that I'm pretty sure has been trying to crow since it was about 3 weeks old. I'm hoping I'm not right because it would be nice to have a girl, but I'm pretty sure that was a little "crow." Its comb is also reddening so that makes it more likely that it's a boy.

 

[HEChicken]

On a thread several months ago, I read of a chick that started crowing at 2 days old. Now I would like to have a seen a video of THAT - how cute can it be? My roo didn't start until 17 weeks - possibly because there are no roosters in the vicinity for him to hear and get the idea from. As for why you could have 2 doing it, my guess would be that IF what the first one was trying to do WAS a crow, the other is doing it BECAUSE he's hearing the first - sort of a competitive thing. Is there any way you can get a video of it?

 

[Hay]

Well, in this video, the chick crows at around 6 weeks. But I heard of chicks crowing at 5 days of age!!

 

[mstricer]

My roos all crowed by 6 to 9 weeks. They are the ones that are extremely noisey, any bit of light at night can make them start. I have an EE roo who lately has been on my death list due to him being nosiey and mean. Fixed the mean thing today. If only I could stop him from crowing at 4am.