Silkie "hen" just crowed?? Please help (photo included)

[taras]

Thanks, everyone!

S/he continues to crow each morning. It's really odd. S/he looks like a "she" but...who knows! I'm very sad at the thought of returning her, but am not prepared to face the angry neighbors.

 

[greenSearcher]

Does he crow only in the am? If it is basically only once or twice a day check w/ your neighbors, they may not even care, provided you can have roosters. My silkies are quieter, I can hardly hear them, but I am half deaf, literally. I still hear the LF boys though.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

I've heard of this...

I have a friend, and she has a little OEGB hen that lays eggs and crows. The reason for this odd behavior is there is no rooster present so I suppose the hens feels she must take up the job of waking everyone.

 

[mama24]

Do you have a rooster? We got rid of our original rooster a few months ago (he was delicious

lol. he was mean) and one of our hens started crowing. It was a horrible strangled sound, not like a real rooster cock a doodle doo. She got mean and aggressive too, so we got a new rooster (she's our best layer, lays probably 29/30 days or we would have just gotten rid of her.) She didn't want to give her status to the new rooster at first, but after many fights over several days, she quit crowing and is a docile quiet hen again.

 

[taras]

OK, so I think we have resolution on this. It's a ROOSTER! It was the weirdest thing. He looked like a hen, and was more than 6 months old, and looked like a hen the whole time. Then all of a sudden the crowing started, and within the week had a bunch of physical "rooster" traits. He started walking differently, his tail came up, and his face changed. Weird.

A few days later one of our chicks (probably 8 weeks old) started crowing too!

*shrug*

It is what it is, and we took them back to the breeder and got a replacement hen. I'm sad because we really, really liked the little guy, and didn't mind the crowing ourselves. But city living isn't conducive to roosters.

Thanks for chiming in, everyone!

Tara

 

[SlowMoneyFarm]

Did she (he) ever lay? Have heard of reproductive injury affecting hormones. Had a Dominique once that would lay eggs *and* crow.

 

[Gordon_H]

wow...burning a chicken at the stake...there is a really good joke in here somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.

How worried should you be about a witch-chicken? Daisy (the white-crested, black polish) has a weird nervous habit of jumping around a bit....should I go get some wood?

 

[LittleChickenLady]

We borred a rooster once, and after we returned him, one of our OEGB started crowing.
She doesn't do it all the time, but for a while she did it several times a day. Now it's only sometimes.

Funny thing is, that my grandma said that when we took the rooster back, he started making this "screaming sound" like our OEGB does on a regular basis. (Usually to get your attention if you're outside)
We decided that he taught her to crow, and she taught him to "scream".