I have a 14 week old black orpington, who I believe is crossed with Cochin, who began to crow this morning. We have always feared her being a roo as she is much larger and more aggressive than her lavender sister who we were told is the same age. She is also the one who calls the shots in the hen house.
This suggests it is in fact a female whose hormones have gone awol, since roosters don't call the shots over hens; the dominant hen does. Some males though always get mixed up in girlfights. And maybe it's just a confused boy who didn't know what gender he is until recently. From the photo, it sure looks male. Those neck feathers did not appear in one month flat, I'd bet. If you compare those neck hackles to a female of the same age or any mature age, you won't find identical ones.
There are two mature types of neck hackling for hens; one is similar to a rooster, but has less fringe to it; it's shiny but not quite as glossy; the other is plain juvenile style feathers, but the fanciest feathers are reserved for males. Your chook is sporting typically male feathers. By now you should be able to see new feathers on the shoulders and back which will be unlike what the females have, and he should also have feathers similar to his neck hackles on the sides of his rump, between his legs and tail.
Ihad her to the vet about a month ago and he calmed my fears by saying she was in fact a she, until this morning. Full on crow at 5:15am.
If your vet has certified the gender, how did they do so? :/ (fail, lol...)
Sadly you can't keep a rooster quiet. Nor a crowing hen. And that one definitely looks like a full on normal rooster.
Folks will go on and on about crowing hens, and it can happen, but it's older hens with hormonal imbalances as a rule.
Mostly that's true, but in my experience it's not a rule, because most crowing hens I've had were young and had experienced something traumatic to set them off, or were just plain weird. One liked to sing along with her boyfriend. One was attacked by a fox and had her crop ripped out. Others were just temporarily high in male hormones, I'd guess. But I haven't had older hens crow as much as younger ones, and they were laying and mothering normally before and after their crowing episodes. I had various hens of different breeds who never crowed that still grew normal spurs, sometimes mated with other hens, and were good layers.
Edit: de-crowing is an expensive option, which makes it kinda not an actual option, unless he's a special pet. It's usually via caponizing. Supposedly it will stop some roosters, not all or even most, once they've started crowing. A vet will charge a lot for it, others will do it for free. Not giving advice here, just saying what I've heard. There is another method I've heard about but I'd never use it, because it's cruel and anyway it needs to be done in infancy.
