Rooster Chat

[TheTwoRoos]

Now that I watch the video,are you sure you just didn't make oops and got a boy that was a late bloomer,can we see some before and after pics?

 

[keesmom]

My hen turned into a rooster, now she acts and looks just like a roo, I keep her separate but engaged. You can see her in this video

In another thread you mentioned you had hens that just turned one. Is this one the same age?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

My hen turned into a rooster, now she acts and looks just like a roo, I keep her separate but engaged. You can see her in this video

That's always been a rooster. Orpington are slow to mature.

 

[meetthebubus]

Well, China was born in february of 2016 and my others where born about May 1st 2016 so they are about 3 months difference in age.so i say they are both 1 years although china is a bit older

Roo, my main guy of the bubus, he looked and acted like a rooster before china did, her spurs came in after Roo, who is 3 months younger.


chinas's brothers were all crowing really young too all being orpingtons i would say by may (3 months old) i had my first crowing, i'll have to look up the video, my old camera was poor quality and i may have lost footage but i'll search for it and hopefully come up with the vids and pics of my first batch that included China

when roosters are around each other the will to crow starts really young they squeeze out any sound as soon as they can even though they sound like a squeaky toy

china always acted like a hen, i even saw one of my roos try to mate with her, but he was violent towards everyone so i kept them seperate.

i hold china while my husband helps out to care for her like when she gets poo in her butt feathers, and he said he saw her vent, although tight and unused, i would asume it would be obvious by now if she was always a roo. with roo parts

i'll try to scrounge up the photos, i wasn't big on taking pics back then but i have something i think

one thing she never tries to mate ever though, i had a roo that would mate with a rag when he was in solitary LOL

so in the end i doubt in my opinion that it took china 7 or 8 months to mature even that is unheard of i woiuld think? maybe

thanks for all your input

 

[meetthebubus]

oh i also wanted to add i was still waiting for an egg from China, when my bubus gave their first egg in september! thats how much she didn't look like a rooster LOL

 

[keesmom]

Well, China was born in february of 2016 and my others where born about May 1st 2016 so they are about 3 months difference in age.so i say they are both 1 years although china is a bit older

Roo, my main guy of the bubus, he looked and acted like a rooster before china did, her spurs came in after Roo, who is 3 months younger.


chinas's brothers were all crowing really young too all being orpingtons i would say by may (3 months old) i had my first crowing, i'll have to look up the video, my old camera was poor quality and i may have lost footage but i'll search for it and hopefully come up with the vids and pics of my first batch that included China

when roosters are around each other the will to crow starts really young they squeeze out any sound as soon as they can even though they sound like a squeaky toy

china always acted like a hen, i even saw one of my roos try to mate with her, but he was violent towards everyone so i kept them seperate.

i hold china while my husband helps out to care for her like when she gets poo in her butt feathers, and he said he saw her vent, although tight and unused, i would asume it would be obvious by now if she was always a roo. with roo parts

i'll try to scrounge up the photos, i wasn't big on taking pics back then but i have something i think

one thing she never tries to mate ever though, i had a roo that would mate with a rag when he was in solitary LOL

so in the end i doubt in my opinion that it took china 7 or 8 months to mature even that is unheard of i woiuld think? maybe

thanks for all your input

China was never a female. He was always a cockerel. Subordinate males keep quiet to avoid being noticed, and yes they are sometimes mounted by more dominant males. Eight months for an Orpington to mature is not uncommon even if siblings matured faster. And even if you haven't seen him mate it does not mean he isn't.

As for "roo parts", there are none to see. Testicles are internal along the back, and chickens to not have a penis.

 

[ILuvMyFlock]

I had a lavender orp once that acted like a female and I thought it was until much later on the features began to take on a rooster look, even when I found out it was a he, he still acted like a she. I never ever (that I recall anyway) caught that bird mate, he just never acted manly. I loved him he had such a gentle personality, sadly he and a few other Roos were plucked off by possums etc. even a white silkie I had whose like the dad / grandpa of most of my flock got killed.

I have this one rir rooster I swear he's not right in the head, he's not that old, he has his green tail but it's not that long and his Spurs are not fully in... Anyway he runs around trying to mate anything and everything literally, he'll go after the turkeys, the ducks, the Guineas, etc. me and him have an understanding, I tell him boy ya ain't right, I love ya but ya got a screw loose.

My other older Roos ( I have Roos of various ages and sizes / I buy & raise straight run ) are pretty tamed down since I raise them all together, I don't cut their spurs, thankfully I rarely see fights, and if I do see a fight I break it up or my geese break it up. I let my boys know no fighting. They want the hens so bad but I keep them separated unless I decide to breed a male and a female at a tame. I do this because when I was new to raising them I lost a hen... At that time I had the coop sectioned off, one side males the other side females, now the males are in the yard and the females live in my really big coop we built them. Anyway the hen jumped into the males area and it wasn't good... they killed her, and when I found her they were trying to mate with her dead body I was utterly mortified to say the least, I was gagging from the shock I wanted to barf, I just couldn't believe it and I still can't...

(For those new to raising Chickens), they mate by doing a cloacal kiss, the above poster is correct males do not have a penis, but I will say ducks do! I'm shocked chickens don't have something, but what oddly shocked me even more is when I started raising the ducks and I saw that they did! Forgive me for saying this but someone may get a good laugh from it anyway... When I first noticed that ducks have the ya know what's, I saw ones thang wriggling and I thought omg it has a parasite! It literally looks like a cork screw, poor female ducks, but I think my hubby told me that's not a worm... Lol. So yea I did my research and I was amazed at how the ducks can mate as I had assumed they cloacal kiss too, anyway it's neat the females can literally either close off and reject the male, or use a dead end so his sperm won't fertilize her eggs, or accept his sperm. It still makes me feel sick like though when I see the male ducks member. Blehkkk.

 

[Amelia Egghart]

What are some of the qualities you guys like to look for when selecting breeding roosters for your flock raised from chicks? Keepers or eaters per se.

This thread isn't too long to read through, some good information, stories, pictures and funny stuff. Take away though, if you have several boys a bachelor pen is a good idea. Give them enough time to sexually mature and you'll see more of who they are. They have a really rough adolescence period where they try to mate with everything, don't let that cloud your judgment - good birds can be awful at that age and vice versa. Some of the most social chicks are the worst mature males, they don't respect humans and are more likely to attack. The ones who shy away from you and give you space are the ones showing you respect (opposite of dog behavior!). What's your situation?

 

[ILuvMyFlock]

What are some of the qualities you guys like to look for when selecting breeding roosters for your flock raised from chicks? Keepers or eaters per se.

I just now saw this... I don't raise any to eat so I can't answer that, but as for breeding, If I do breed I just try and pick out the biggest roo with the most social personality. I have a flock full of a few generations, a lot of mine are mixed, but I do have a few pure bred chickens, but I also don't mind having the mixed birds as some of the cutest birds are ones that were mixed. For instance right now I have a polish rooster that is too cute - his dad was a grey and white polish and the mom was probably a rhode island red so he's still a polish but he has some white, some grey, and some different shades of red.

I don't really breed necessarily for aesthetics, I just breed to keep my flock going, but I do try and breed from the kindest most social roos / hens. Some people like to breed to keep the flock pure, some breed for the money, I am the type that I don't need the money, I don't mind having mixed birds, I don't care about the looks, I just like knowing that I will always have little feathery friends here.

 

[meetthebubus]

you can't say that it's a cockeral, you can give your doubts thats fine but you can't state it like its not possible, it is scientifically possible and happened to China i have pics of her when she was little, a bird can't stop itself from growing spurs, waddle, crest and tail feathers, it may not crow but it definatly doesn't act and look like a hen for 8 months and be a roo the whole time. besides the fact you say that you can't see the male parts tells me you don't know much about it (sorry) because you can if you look, i've seen Roo's male parts just stay tuned and i'll produce vids and pics of the originals that included china here and on my channel