What gender?

[winkyfaye]

These two beautiful chicks are supposed to be Welsmummer hens, but I am thinking otherwise. They were hatched the week of April 24th. So they are almost 10 weeks old. Need opinions on weather they are roos for sure. Will have to rehome as I do not have enough room for two roos that are already trying to fight. Also, at 10 weeks are chicks old enough to start the introduction with my adult hens or do I need to wait until they are older?

 

[TheKindaFarmGal]

Both look like boys. How many hens do you have, and how old are all your chickens?

 

[winkyfaye]

Thanks for the fast reply. I was afraid of that. We have 4 adult hens and 11 young ones, 10 - 6 and 4 weeks. They are all in different pens on our porch (closed in with hardware cloth) according to age at this time. At least we are hoping the 11 are all hens. The sad thing is when I picked these guys up at 6 weeks old the lady said "oh you don't want roosters" when I mentioned that one of my other chicks may be a roo. I told her NO. She hesitated a minute by did not say anything further. I should have done more homework and I would have known that you can tell the difference in the welsummer breed.

Anyway, the next concern is if I can put one of the roosters in with my older hens until I can re-home them. I do not want any injuries from fighting. We have limited room for the coop and pen, so can not build another to house a second set of chickens. I did not want to deal with fertile eggs, which is the reason I did not want roosters. We do love roosters as well.

 

[TheKindaFarmGal]

Fertile eggs are not any different than eggs that haven't been fertilized, in regard to being edible and etc. They only develop chicks if a hen goes broody or you put them in an incubator, and if you gather eggs daily or every other day you can easily avoid that.

 

[winkyfaye]

Thanks TheKindaFarmGal, I know they are not different, just wanted all hens. Will consider keeping one of them but because of space and risk of injury can not keep both. I am also sad that now I do not have a welsummer hen.

I have a question that may sound dumb, but I am still a newbie and learning. With poultry as with other animals do you have to be concerned about inbreeding? Asking just in case I do keep one of the roosters and hatch some chicks.

 

[twinsmom6]

 

[TheKindaFarmGal]

Pullet.

 

[twinsmom6]

thank you they are 5 weeks old - the first part did not come through

 

[TheKindaFarmGal]

thank you they are 5 weeks old - the first part did not come through

Because of the young age it could change, but she does look like a pullet right now. What breed?

 

[twinsmom6]

two of them there.. the redder one is Noah and the more brown one is Michael. I have been told they are EEs. When they were peeps they had very fuzzy cheeks..
this is michaels baby pic.. she is the one in my avatar too.. she had a sticky vent and I had to flush it when she was little.. thank goodness we got to it quickly .. she did not like the sink.. but the results were awesome.. this is a post bath pic