What breed/gender are these?

[Sarahmander]

Hello!

I got my first flock of chickens a while ago and a couple of them are confusing me! Can anyone tell me what breed and gender these are?


First Chicken: I have tried to find out what this is but Google just is not helping.







Second Chicken: I think it's a Silver Penciled Wyandotte Bantam but the comb looks different from every other picture I've seen. Is this a rooster?






Thanks in advance!

 

[donrae]

the first bird looks to be a partridge cochin rooster. the second bird looks laced, not penciled, I'm not sure. But it's not unheard of for Wyandottes to throw out single combs once in a while. They shouldn't be used for breeding if you're wanting show type birds, but if you're just a backyard person they're fine to breed. I've read it's something about the rose comb being tied to lower fertility rates, so single combed birds are infused every so often to boost fertility, this gives random single combed offspring at times.

And after typing all that, he has feathered legs, correct? That rules out Wyandotte altogether, I'd say he's also a cochin.

They're beautiful boys! If I didn't live where it's so wet, I'd have tons of standard size cochins, I think they're just beautiful.

 

[Sarahmander]

Yes, they are both bantams and have feathered feet.

They are both boys?

 

[donrae]

Oh yeah, both roosters.

 

[Kelsie2290]

X2 on both male cochins, beautiful birds.

 

[Sarahmander]

Ha, holy cow!

I started this off not wanting any roosters. So far, if these really are both boys, *FIVE* out of eight chickens are roosters! Luckily only one of them knows he's a rooster. You can see part of his white body in one of the pictures. He's the smallest one but he keeps the rest of them in line and he's the only one who makes noise (as of now...).

 

[donrae]

Maybe you need to post pics here before you buy them? We've had a few folks do that and it's kept them from unwittingly buying roosters.

 

[Sarahmander]

Donrae, I wish I would have known about this site when I bought them.

So how do I tell if a chick is male or female?

 

[donrae]

Depends on how old. Little baby chicks, with no feathers, you really can't. The hatcheries vent sex them, I've not met anyone who successfully does this. At six weeks, some breeds are easy to sex. This is when males start getting larger, redder combs, thicker legs, and some breeds the males are different colors than the females.

edit--when I said to post pics before buying, I was under the impression you'd purchased the birds fairly recently. I'm guess that is not the case!

 

[Kev]

Second bird is birchen cochin (rooster). A nice one I might add.. hens of that line probably have a lot of that white "lacing"....