The hen is actually a rooster - YIKES!

[Ed62]

Last spring we bought 8 female chicks. One of the chicks in now a cockerel, crowing away. He's still with the girls, and he seems to be doing a good job. But he just won't lay any eggs for us.

Ed

 

[BigIslandChicks]

Quote:

this just reminded me... i go out to the coop and one of the roos is in the nest all cozy NEXT to a dummy egg! was he trying to keep it warm? was he going to lay an egg? i wasnt sure! he was clucking a little, was he calling the girls to the nest? they are mostly not laying yet? i asked him what he was doing and was questioning his masculinity/sex and he crowed at me for the 1st time i think, so that answers that i guess! he is the smaller of the 2 so right after he crowed the big boy had to show off his nice clean sounding crow and then it was raspy crow and this went on for a min. lol i had to walk away!! lol

 

[Cavendish Chickens]

You can keep him with the girls so long as you are okay with the crowing. Here's my story...

I bought 6 eggs.... 2 from three different breeds. Only 1 hatched (May 21st). A speckled sussex (Precious). After watching a video on how to tell the gender on a day old chick, we determined him to be a boy. We took him the next day to the guy we got the eggs from and he said he was a girl, so we bought a male (Shanticlaire - that was a month older) from him (my mom wanted us to have a roo, and I wanted hens). Two months down the road, the male we bought started to crow and still would not let us handle him. Our 3 yr old daughter was the only one able to touch him at all, and that was just a quick pet on the back. Another month later we find out we were right in the beginning. Our hatchling was indeed a male (Now named Precious Boy). So we decided we'd just have roo's, no hens and eggs. Disappointment. We were told we could do that and keep them together. The Shanti dominated our Precious so bad that he was trapped in a corner by the older roo... not permitted to come out to eat or drink. So... we called the guy and he took the Shanti back with no problem. Only thing was... we wanted to buy hens of the same breed and he didn't have them anymore. SO... he told us he did have leghorn hens close to egg laying age we could buy. He sold us a light brown leghorn hen (Mable), and a white leghorn hen (Gloria) (both hatched around June 12th). Well... Precious Boy was picking on them for quite some time until recently. Apparently roo's are extremely "horny" in the morning, and he was chasing them around like crazy! Eventually they finally went into season and started to breed with him. I saw Precious Boy mate with Mable, so we went out to make sure things were set with a nest box and such and found 2 soft shelled eaten eggs on the top of the coop. Sad. We stayed in the run and watched the girls explore the nest box and saw Gloria making a nest. We began thinking that if one of them went broody, it would probably be her. Well starting on black Friday we started finding eggs in the nest box. 1 on black Friday, 1 Saturday, none Sunday, 2 on Monday, 1 Tuesday.... long egg story short.. we now have 9 eggs. Well the eggs we were finding were brown. Thought maybe it was because Precious came from a brown egg. Then yesterday morning we found a very small white egg with blood smears on the outside of it laying on the ground in the run. Today another white egg discovered inside the coop, but not in the nest box. So right now we have 7 brown, 2 white. I learned just last night that Gloria is NOT a white leghorn like we were told by the guy we bought her from, but in fact a white rock. Doesn't really bug me. I don't care what the breed is. She is such a sweetie!!! And gorgeous to boot! I just wish this guy knew more about what he was talking about. Now that is only 2 hens to one roo. We keep his wings clipped so they can fly away from him whenever they need to. They are all doing great. Precious Boy went from being the cry baby that needed held all the time to the "cocky" roo with an attitude... or tries to have an attitude. lol We pick him up from time to time and hold him... but not without gloves. He bites us now. We rub his comb and wattles, and he seems to like it. The girls... well... they come to you rather than you to them. And that's fine with us. They are sweet little girls and I wouldn't trade them for anything. And Precious Boy is such a smartie... or stupid... one of the two. lol When we take out treats to them he shows them where it is by grabbing it and dropping it making a certain clucking sound, even if they are already eating. And he doesn't really get much of it. Rather he shows them what he has so they can eat it. The gentleman's way I guess.... Ladies first! lol So... that's my chicken story.

Your girls will be fine with the roo in there. And the eggs will be fine too. Perfect for eating. (And since yours are all the same breed you can sell the fertile eggs in the spring to make a couple extra bucks... and maybe even a few chicks you hatch, if you decide to hatch any. Sell the fertile eggs by however many your customers want to hatch, sell eggs period by the dozen for eating, and chicks... A little extra money never hurt anyone that I know of. lol Good luck with your RIR's. They will be fine. And make sure to handle the roo as much as possible. (Oh... and if you keep him you will need to decide whether to have his spurs removed when they grow in, or put saddles on the girls. That's what we're trying to decide right now. Our roo's spurs haven't grown yet, but the spur bumps are bigger than they were.) Have a blast! Chickens are great, and VERY entertaining!

 

[Cavendish Chickens]

Quote:
Big Island... you just reminded ME!! We went out last night to look for an egg, and sure enough there was one. Our ROOSTER was sitting on it while the hens were sleeping on TOP of the coop!! I couldn't believe it! We had ourselves a good laugh over it. We waited for him to come out and then my husband grabbed the egg. When we left, the roo went back in and was going nuts trying to find the egg! Apparently he wants to be broody! LOL

 

[hawaiian]

Quote:
I'm on Kauai. Thanks for the offer though. I think I may have found someone who might be interested in having him...otherwise I'll do the craigslist thing. Mahalo!