These Three - Any Chance for a Pullet?

[10whiskers]

None of my Easter Eggers have turned out to be pullets. Any chance with these last three, that I might get at least one? They are the only ones that looked like this (Gray colored) at four days old. Age: 9 weeks. If yes, I'll post some more pics. If not, they will be re-homed tomorrow morning. Sigh.



PS: Got them from a local Poultry Farmer at four days old.

 

[lightchick]

Could you post pics of each ones comb?

 

[10whiskers]

Could you post pics of each ones comb?

Here is one from earlier, today. All three have very wide combs, but are oddly smooshed in. On a side note, the tiniest, and most narrow combs are on two obvious cockerels! (who are leaving tomorrow) I don't know if comb size works with the 20 chicks I got from this poultry farmer. I think he's been experimenting for a long time with his breeding, but I'm probably grabbing at straws. I can comb through my other photos from this afternoon to see if I can find combs for the others. These three chicks will freak out if I try and pull them out now. They are the most timid of the twenty chicks I have/had (six others were rehomed last week.) I could try in the morning, though.

 

[lightchick]

How do you know the others are males? Looks like a pullet to me.

 

[keesmom]

How do you know the others are males? Looks like a pullet to me.

I agree. If you can find your older pictures it would help.

 

[10whiskers]

How do you know the others are males? Looks like a pullet to me.

Looks like a pullet to you? Really? *fingers crossed* These don't look, positively, like cockerels to me, but I'm totally new to chickens. The pale, but wide combs are throwing me off. These are the last of my Easter Egger's, that I haven't ruled out as pullets. The others started to have very red combs at an early age or they have the "wrong" color patching on the wings, or wrong colored breasts, or one has hackles, that look close to being on a full grown rooster, that I've read on here are not acceptable for pullets.

The only three pullets I'm keeping are from another breed, that look like pullets. I mean, like, textbook hens. I would love for these three, pictured, or one, even, to be a pullet. The Easter Egger is the whole reason I decided to get chickens. But because my Son had to buy another car to get to a couple of classes 120 miles round-trip, I had to keep these pullets in their breeder pen and it's much to small to keep the chickens as they grow. I had to push back my time-table on finishing the run. I'm in Florida and I can't imagine keeping them in just the coop in this humidity. It's not a "Florida style" coop like the coops of I've seen in our Family photo's. (They looked like a lean-to surrounded by chicken wire. Only the nesting boxes half closed in.) It's a hoot, really. I have a family reunion photo from 1922, here in Florida, where a chicken is in the photo! The coop isn't shown, but I imagine the Families would get together and swap chickens while they were together.

Thank you for giving me a little hope one of these might be a pullet. I can do six, but not the twelve left in the brooder pen, now. I only have to wait about three weeks to finish the run. =)

PS: I might as well show you the photo. The chicken is in the lower right.

 

[Indyshent]

Ditto. Mine was crowing, had a bright red pea comb, and was trying to mount the hens by that age.

 

[lightchick]

All of yours from what I can see are pullets. I really don't think that they look like roos at all.

 

[10whiskers]

Ditto. Mine was crowing, had a bright red pea comb, and was trying to mount the hens by that age.

Wow! I guess because of who-knows-what is in their linage, some Easter Eggers probably have some fast muturing genes. Mine certainly didn't have the obvious narrow based beak, that I see in the online poultry pictures. I know mine play acted and I did take that into account, but unlike my Country Family, I live just outside the city limits and am deathly afraid a rooster will spark tension between one of my neighbors. Of course, I don't mind the crowing across the street, but they've been here a long time. There used to be horses down the street a few years ago, but it seems like people are less tolerant of things these days. So, no crowing and I hope the hen (when I get one) will try to be as quiet as possible when she lays. I'll hold her hand, if need be.

I had to send an aggressive (what I thought to be rooster) to rooster heaven two weeks ago. Even if it was a pullet, it was biting and not letting the others get to their food. I cried like a baby for half the day. That's when friends, who had said they would eat all the roosters I had at the beginning, went weak in the knees when I called for consolation (Acted like I just killed the family dog!) and found an old farmer, close by who would take all the birds I could send his way. Thank goodness. I don't think I can handle another death by my hand unless it's for humane purposes.

I guess I've decided to keep these three he/she's, then, and just watch for a rooster to crow (I hope they practice first). I might break my leg to quiet the guy, but I'll just blame it on the neighbors across the street. I haven't thrown anyone under the bus, lately. I think I'm getting too soft. *evil grin*.

 

[Indyshent]

Lady I got hm from couldn't have roosters in her subdivision, and he was so loud that they couldn't even fake like he was a hen. He took a few weeks to warm up to our place, but he crows all the time. My yard might be fifty by fifty feet, and I live 'in the hood'... with three roos who like to have crow-offs. The bantam is hilarious and sounds like a determinedly creaky door; the Rhode Island sounds more like a low, manly coughing fit, but it's the EE who shouts everyone down. I'll hazard a guess that 90% of my fertile eggs come from him.