Trans hen/roo?

[LindaLouBird]

Thank you all... Odd that I have never heard a peep out of him? He acted just like the others until last week. Overnight he grew taller, redder, & mounted the black one. She's the only one he has eyes for, at least until now. No crow, no pecking, none of the other traits I see posted about other roos. If he stays nice and quiet, he'll earn himself a couple of new girlfriends.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Thank you all... Odd that I have never heard a peep out of him? He acted just like the others until last week. Overnight he grew taller, redder, & mounted the black one. She's the only one he has eyes for, at least until now. No crow, no pecking, none of the other traits I see posted about other roos. If he stays nice and quiet, he'll earn himself a couple of new girlfriends.

I've had a few males that just took forever to crow, and some (including a littlenhen that decoded she liked crowing after being broken of brooding) that just. Won't. Shut. Up. They like to switch it up sometimes and try to co fuse you, that's for sure.

 

[ShrekDawg]

How old is he again? My rooster didn’t crow until at least 6-7 months because I had more dominant roosters. And I’ve heard of some not crowing until well over a year. Meanwhile I’ve had ones start crowing at 8 weeks old and have even had fertilized eggs from a 4 month old. So it just depends on the bird. Some mature faster or slower than others.

 

[LindaLouBird]

People here aren't humorless... well, maybe some of us are
The thing is people seriously ask this very same question all the time, which results in much discussion and disagreement about whether it's possible or not. So if some people it's not directed at you so much as it is the topic.

Thanks, Geena. It felt personal, I won't take it that way.

 

[LindaLouBird]

How old is he again? My rooster didn’t crow until at least 6-7 months because I had more dominant roosters. And I’ve heard of some not crowing until well over a year. Meanwhile I’ve had ones start crowing at 8 weeks old and have even had fertilized eggs from a 4 month old. So it just depends on the bird. Some mature faster or slower than others.

I would say 8-9 months.

 

[ShrekDawg]

I would say 8-9 months.

Still quite young then. Not unusual at all. Some are just late bloomers.

 

[LindaLouBird]

I have a story.

My Wyandotte, Maleficient, lived for the first 2 years of her life in all female flock. She laid eggs. She was somewhere in the middle of the pecking order. Then, her friend Buffy died. I didn't even know they were friends. Sure, they were often together, but Maleficient the Wynadotte was always so mean and bossy towards the super sweet & submissive ISA Brown. And yet, they were clearly friends, becasue Maleficent became very depressed after Buffy died. (Depression being diagnosed by lack of laying, lack of pleasure in things that she used to enjoy, isolating herslef, and nothing apparent medically wrong with her).

Around this same time our accidental rooster was maturing and learning how to be a rooster. The girls who were his age and raised with him had no issues with him, but the older girls were entirely unimpressed. During this time Maleficent began crowing and fighting (kicking) with my roo. My roo and the 8 younger hens would hang out, and Maleficent and her flock mate, Wren, would hang out seperately. Eventually Wren (who used to be top of the pecking order) decided having a man around wasn't so bad, and she began splitting her time between Maleficent and the rest of the flock. Slowly she spent more and more time with the flock, and Maleficent started spending more and more time on her own. Maleficent stopped crowing, but still wasn't laying. (I suspected henopause - I've heard of hens developing rooster traits).

To add to the depression diagnosis... Wren developed a crop impaction. I brought her indoors for a few days and Maleficent immediately went on a hunger strike. Put Wren back with the flock, Maleficent started eating. Pulled Wren in again when the crop soured, and Maleficent quit eating. I had to keep Wren and Maleficent in isolation together while I treated Wren (who thank goodness made a full recovery otherwise I'm sure I'd have lost both girls).

So now everyone is back together, and doing their "normal" thing. My roo is 10 months old, and to the best of my knowlege has never mounted Maleficent. In fact, he runs her off as if she were another roo. Well, guess what... a couple weeks ago, Maleficent comes running up to me and SQUATTED. Then she ran off and laid an egg! Now she's laying almost daily (she's about to be 4 and it's January... WHAT?!), she's back to her old sassy and bossy self, demanding treats, and constantly squatting for me (but still not the roo). She is mingling with the flock more and even gets closer to Lucifer than she used to, although they are still not friends.

My story doesn't really help the OP, but I guess just goes to show that chickens are complex. I suspect that Maleficent's depression led her to question her sexuality. I don't know if that's a real thing, and I don't really care. I love having her back to her old self. (I love her squatting because she's the SOFTEST chicken in the world and it's the only time she lets me touch her). I didn't realize just how much her personality had changed over the past 5-6 months. Now, if I can just convince my roo to be a little more assertive and tell her to stop playing so hard to get, maybe I could get some sassy little chicks from her!

Here's a video of me refereeing an altercation between Lucifer (roo) and Maleficent (hen) that was caught on my trail cam, as well as a couple pics of Maleficent.

View attachment 3383866View attachment 3383868

Thank you for that amusing story! they are certainly colorful characters...

 

[LindaLouBird]

Still quite young then. Not unusual at all. Some are just late bloomers.

I swear he gets bigger every day now.

 

[ShrekDawg]

I swear he gets bigger every day now.

Yeah, they can keep growing for a while. Most of my birds didn’t completely fill out until at least a couple years old. Definitely well over a year. So yeah.

 

[Lardson]

Can you post some pictures of your flock? It's EXTREMELY rare that a bird changes gender, it's mostly something that can be found in certain types of fish. Most likely, he's either a cockerel that is a late bloomer, or a hen that has some dominance issues with your other hen, hence why she/he only seems interested in her. And again, I want to emphasise how rare it is for a chicken to change gender. Post some pictures of how they are now, and some from when they were younger, so we can see if it truly changed gender (again, highly unlikely)

Changing gender is physically impossible, these birds are probably just messed up from birth, physically a female but actually male. This could also just be a case of the hen trying to take place of the rooster, which i have seen before.