I have 5 Silver Phoenix. Two Roo's and 3 hens. The hens are the absolute sweetest birds. If their eggs were bigger I would have only this breed hands down. I raised mine from day old chicks. The females do vocalize a lot for female chickens, but it's not a loud cackling, it's a soft cooing, almost a sing song. I really like to think it's like they are welcoming me and talking to each other.
The boys needed to be put in their place. They definitely got too big for their britches. However, as soon as we started to show them we were higher in the pecking order they behave just fine. They are noisy as heck. Fritz crows all day long. Any time he sees that there is someone or something to pay attention to him. People moving 3 or 400 yards away he crows, sun up, sun down, sun out from behind a cloud, rain drop, hen gets too far away, hen gets to close, other rooster moves etc he crows. Roo doesn't crow nearly as much, but still multiple times per day. When compared with a Standard Cochin rooster who only crows if the fox is eating him... it's a loud rooster.
My Phoenix were born in early April. They have two different development patterns. Fritz has been slow, and we thought him a hen for a little while. Roo was a rooster from about week 3 on. That's where he got his name, he was the first one to pop up as a rooster. Fritz always had a smaller comb and wattles, and his tail is thinner (not shorter) than Roo's. Roo has a spectacular comb and wattles. His tail is about 2 feet long and very full right now. Some feathers are probably 2 1/2 feet long.
Laney