Silkie Rooster Question

[momwitham]

We have been raising guineas for about 4 years now, and they are great at keeping the bugs in check. This past March, my boyfriend brought home some New Hampshire and Buff Orpington chicks. His reasoning was that the chickens would brood the guinea eggs and raise the guineas so we didn't have to. Well, about 2 months ago, his daughter-in-law called and asked could we take some silkie roosters (also hatched in March) that a client of hers had. The client had to get rid of them because they were crowing and the neighbors were complaining.

We got 3 silkies to go with our 4 hens. At this point, only one of the silkies is actually behaving like a rooster - crowing, "strutting his stuff", acting like the top dog. I'm pretty sure that one of them is a hen, and the other one is up in the air. I know that silkies are supposed to be really docile, and this crowd is. They were raised to be pets, and they love to be handled. My question is when will we know for sure about the odd ball? If it's a rooster will it eventually begin crowing, or will only the top rooster crow? Will they start fighting even though they have been raised together?

I'm really hopeful that one is a hen, since they are supposed to be good brooders/mothers and that's what we wanted chickens for in the first place (of course, we're not going to turn our noses up at the eggs, either!) If we have 2 hens, so much the better!

Any information would be helpful.

 

[Judy]

I think your suspicion is a good one, that the rooster who is crowing is the "lead" roo, which discourages the other one from crowing. If the non-crowing one really is a roo, and if he has the opportunity, he will mate with the girls when he gets a chance -- usually when the lead roo is too far away to bother him, or isn't looking.