What do y’all think?

lilwanderer

Crowing
Apr 7, 2022
809
1,919
256
Live Oak, Florida
10 week old brahma mix, male or female? Colors say male, but everything else literally says female from my experience, they’re really small compared to the others ones, and they’re very friendly.
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Added: ( Forgot to mention its cockerel litter mates have tried and occasionally will successfully mount them. )

455EE1B8-0C33-43F1-BCE2-E68DABB5EF37.jpeg
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the mom:
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the dad:
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What a tricky bird! I'm not sold either way on this one. Have you tried parting the feathers on its back to see if masculine saddle feathers are starting to sprout? Those would be the shiny, pointy feathers like what the father has draping around the base of his tail. This is what they look like when they first start growing in (though the color will likely be different on your bird, of course!) :

https://www.backyardchickens.com/attachments/1621601048053-png.2680948/


Just a note, mating behavior, especially in young cockerels, is more about dominance than about breeding. If a cockerel is less dominant, he may be mounted and mated by the more dominant males around him despite that he is also male. This is why you sometimes hear of hens mounting each other as well. They are not really mating, they are dominating the other bird and proving themselves to be the boss.
 
What a tricky bird! I'm not sold either way on this one. Have you tried parting the feathers on its back to see if masculine saddle feathers are starting to sprout? Those would be the shiny, pointy feathers like what the father has draping around the base of his tail. This is what they look like when they first start growing in (though the color will likely be different on your bird, of course!) :

https://www.backyardchickens.com/attachments/1621601048053-png.2680948/


Just a note, mating behavior, especially in young cockerels, is more about dominance than about breeding. If a cockerel is less dominant, he may be mounted and mated by the more dominant males around him despite that he is also male. This is why you sometimes hear of hens mounting each other as well. They are not really mating, they are dominating the other bird and proving themselves to be the boss.
yes i hear of that, but this one cockerel i have feathered in really fast and us on the smaller side, leading me to think it was a female; Then it started mounting and its only ever mounted the hens, none of the other cockerels, besides this one if it is a cockerel.
 

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