Pullet crowing and no eggs

[chickens really]

I was thinking that the build looked immature, and for it to be showing red while not yet grown, that says cockerel, whether the feathers agree or not.

I know he is a Cockerel....Why he leaves today with the other two for Butcher...He was hatched July 20th....I was making a point........I think the OP has a Cockerel too....

 

[FlyingNunFarm]

Another vote for @aart post on this. I swear I have a girl that doesn't lay. The teenage randy roosters show interest in her but she sure isn't interested in them! LOL

 

[chuckachucka]

@aart We do indeed have a cockerel of the same breed and age. For comparison there's a photo of him below. There are clear differences between him and the black girl in question.
I've also heard of dominant hens crowing but this one is bottom of the pecking order. She only seems to crow in response to the cockerel some times when he crows, but it's not more than about once a day. I'm hoping she'll just grow out of this and surprise me with an egg!

 

[aart]

View attachment 1160025 Ok...Pullet or Cockerel?

How old is this bird?
The OP's is 24 weeks.

 

[Bunnylady]

.I was making a point.

I thought you were, and was agreeing with you.

It's a shame we can't see in the U.V. spectrum. I have heard that, in a lot of species of birds, males absolutely light up in U.V, while females don't. This might explain how even immature birds that don't yet show secondary sex characteristics seem to know the boys from the girls, when we can't tell yet.

 

[chickens really]

How old is this bird?
The OP's is 24 weeks.

14 weeks....

 

[Bunnylady]

@aart We do indeed have a cockerel of the same breed and age. For comparison there's a photo of him below. There are clear differences between him and the black girl in question.
I've also heard of dominant hens crowing but this one is bottom of the pecking order. She only seems to crow in response to the cockerel some times when he crows.

Funny story - one time, when my son was in kindergarten, he had homework that included a worksheet on which he was supposed to circle the pictures of the things that started with the letter "h." One of the pictures was a postage-stamp-sized line drawing of a chicken. The drawing was not stylized at all, very realistic; you could clearly see the long, slender, pointed feathers on the neck and saddle. I looked at it and laughed, and showed it to my husband. He's definitely not a chicken person, yet even he said, "isn't that a rooster?" Apparently, the person who put the worksheet together was looking through some clip art pictures, saw the rounded body shape, and assumed it was a hen. I put a note on the page to the teacher that said, "I assume this is supposed to be a "hen," since this is a page on the letter H. But I own birds of this breed, so I know, the bird in this drawing is a rooster!"

I strongly believe that your "black pullet" is really a late-blooming cockerel. To me, just about everything you have said seems to point in that direction.

 

[chuckachucka]

@Bunnylady Interesting. I suppose if it's possible to have a girl chicken that acts like a boy chicken, it must also be possible to have a boy chicken that looks like a girl! I hope it doesn't turn out to be a roo though because I'm short of pullets/hens.

 

[Bunnylady]

This is my logic:

She has been red faced since she was three months old. I have a cockerel who she was raised with who doesn't seem interested in her

This part tell me that to the cockerel, this bird doesn't look like a girl. Though I've had birds of this breed start laying at maybe 16 - 18 weeks, they didn't show red coloring anywhere near 12 weeks.

this one is bottom of the pecking order.

One possibility is that this bird is low on the totem pole because it has low testosterone. Another possibility is that being on the bottom is so stressful, it's affecting the bird's testosterone production.

Frustrating for you, I know, but it'll be interesting to see how this turns out.

 

[21hens-incharge]

In the OP's first pic I see pointed saddle feathers.

Blow the pic up and on the right there are the pointed feathers.

He looks to be very slow developing to me.