The Big Fat Is This A Rooster? Thread

[junebuggena]

Full body shot?

 

[Wfpendragon]

Full body shot?

 

[QueenMisha]

cockerel

 

[eggcatcher]

What does a chicken's male sex organ look like? I flipped over a rooster looked in his hole saw a donut shaped "organ" and pushed back on it, saw a slit and inside it was dark red mucosal tissue. I assume this is a penis. Is my description consistent. Diagrams are great and feathers and combs but I need to know definitively whether a chicken I have is a girl or a boy. I have looked in many a vent and never seen this. Please someone tell me what you see on a real rooster when you look inside. I have a chicken I was told was a hen but I don't have an egg after 8 months and he/she also has this in his/her hole. I don't want to cull him/her if it's a hen but I think I have two roosters. PLEASE HELP.

 

[junebuggena]

Chickens do not have penises.

 

[eggcatcher]

Ok I'm ignorant that's why I'm asking. He uses something "cloaca" to put sperm in the egg to fertilize it. I don't know if I got the name right. When I look in the hole of a male bird what does the male sex organ look like?

 

[junebuggena]

Both males and females have cloacas, it's just another word for vent. There is no male sex organ, of any kind, in chickens.

 

[eggcatcher]

When my friend was looking in his vent to identify him/her what was he looking for do you know. How does the rooster get his sperm into the egg if there is no sex organ. I noticed there was a cloacas on the diagrams of the reproductive system for both males and females. Other than the fact that a girl gives and egg is there any way to be absolutely sure a chicken is male?

 

[junebuggena]

The rooster ejects his sperm into the vent of the hen. The hen then shakes it into a holding sac for fertilizing the yolks. There is no penetration of any kind. For a hen, the portion of the reproductive tract that joins the cloaca is call the oviduct. In a rooster, it's call the vas deferens. Both have the same function, and look very similar.

 

[eggcatcher]

Thank you I knew the sperm had to swim into the egg somehow. So from what you are saying you can't look at the vent of a chicken and determine if it's a boy or a girl. My chicken in question is 8 months old and has given no eggs. It is however the middle of winter and she is a large breed Light Brahma. I called the hatchery she came from and they said because I had her on laying pellets she may not have had enough protein to mature enough to give eggs and to put her back on grow start. So I've done that. My leghorns are laying just fine. The chicken in question is smaller, has smaller feet has wider feathers along the neck than the known rooster, is more easily frightened, is not protective of the others, is not dominate. Despite the delay in starting to lay does it seem reasonable then that I could have a hen after all? Are there other outward signs that anyone knows for this breed to reassure me that this is a hen. I got them by accident but I think I'd like them quite well as a dual purpose chicken. They are very gentle. Butcher out at a 5lb skinned chicken at 16weeks. They are known to be good mothers. I have never had a rooster before because I live in an area that is quite suburban even though I have an acre. However others around me have gotten roosters so I figured I could keep the one I got by mistake. I'd love to raise chickens the old fashioned way and have them reproduce rather than having to buy pullets every year or so which I have done in the past.
So what is the guess do you think my "Eve" may really be a girl? Thank you for your input.