Waiting for eggs, and aggression question

Well chickens usually will not start laying till 5 months of age or longer are they all hens?

 

Yes but my hens begin laying later than that my golden reds start about 6 months roughly

 

I'd make sure that aggressive hen isn't a rooster. Sounds like rooster behavior to me...can you post a pic just to be sure? And as for laying age, I know it depends on the breed. That being said, though, it varies on how long till they lay. I have 9 girls (BR and Commercial Blacks which are BR crosses) and 1 roo. My first batch are 21 weeks old. The second batch 17 weeks old. I got my first egg yesterday, from one of my 17 week old girls (she was 16 weeks, 6 days old). None of my older pullets have laid any.

From my experience, I say listen out for the egg song. I had no idea what an "egg song" was till yesterday morning when I had to listen to it for an hour...from my rooster too!!...then she popped out the egg. Here's the video I took before she laid the egg...you'll know what to listen out for!

 

They are living animals. They don’t come with guarantees. Each one is an individual and will act differently or start laying at different times. I’ve had some start to lay at 16 weeks. I’ve had some that did not start until 9 months. It can vary that much. The more hens you have the more the odds mean as to when they start to lay. If you only have a few, it might be early or late.

Golden Reds, Golden Comets, Red Stars, and all that are just marketing names. It really doesn’t tell you much about their ancestry except that they should be red sex links. They might be based on the commercial egg layers which should start fairly early. They might be based on crossing two standard breeds, which can take later to start. How much later? That depends on what was used as parents.

If yours came from a hatchery, I’d expect at least one or two to start laying really soon since you have five, but it’s possible you could just be plain unlucky. If they came from a “breeder”, well that’s where I got the ones that waited 9 months. But some from a breeder could be laying by now. It really is just luck.

I’ve never heard of Golden Reds but assume with that marketing name they are red sex links. That means the females are red and the males are white. There can be other colors and patterns there but there is a basic difference in appearance and color. If your aggressive one is colored just like the others, odds are pretty good it is a female. And at 18 or 19 weeks, the combs, wattles, legs, and general configuration should be different between male and female. Also, the males will have pointy saddle and hackle feathers while the females will have rounded feathers there. Males should also be quite a bit larger if they have the same parents.

Practically all chain feed stores get their chicks from a hatchery. Local Mom and Pops may get them from other sources. If you could find out what hatchery they came from you could probably go online and check out their chicks to learn more about them. I don’t know where you got them but you might want to check that out just for fun.

I know that wait is hard. You should have seen me waiting 9 months on that group. I don’t think you are faced with that. That kind of wait is really rare. I really expect you to get eggs really soon from what you described. Good luck!