kerryb90
Songster
I have a white isbar/silverrudd named Snicket (they were lemony yellow when they were young) who I got in a mixed lot from Foxfire Farms Poultry (great breeder, highly recommend) and hatched in early May. I had posted previously here when I thought they had laid a fart egg, and I've had a couple more (larger) green chicken eggs show up in the yard since then. Not many, but since the fart egg was laid 12 weeks after the group hatched, I wasn't expecting much!
However, now that Snicket and friends are almost 19 weeks old, I'm starting to have my doubts that it was indeed Snicket who laid that egg. I've determined that there is at least one cockerel from the batch we hatched in May, our pavlovskaya Dmitri, and that he is at or near the bottom of the pecking order (based on the order they leave the coop). Snicket is always the first chicken out of the coop in the morning, and if Snicket is in fact a pullet, they developed quicker than the others, so this would make sense.
Other notes:
Dmitri has been challenging Snicket lately - they're not fighting directly, but a couple of times they looked like they might. So maybe Dmitri, now reaching sexual maturity, is looking to be at the top of the pecking order, as males generally are in single-male flocks?
Snicket also seems to have developed some not-very-prominent saddle feathers, the presence of which points to cockerel.
I've never heard more than one crow at a time, so it could be only Dmitri crowing, or they could be crowing separately. I typically hear one crow in the morning and that's it for the day, though.
Here are a few pictures of Snicket:
Here's Dmitri:
And here's a french black copper marans pullet hatched around the same time, for reference:
However, now that Snicket and friends are almost 19 weeks old, I'm starting to have my doubts that it was indeed Snicket who laid that egg. I've determined that there is at least one cockerel from the batch we hatched in May, our pavlovskaya Dmitri, and that he is at or near the bottom of the pecking order (based on the order they leave the coop). Snicket is always the first chicken out of the coop in the morning, and if Snicket is in fact a pullet, they developed quicker than the others, so this would make sense.
Other notes:
Dmitri has been challenging Snicket lately - they're not fighting directly, but a couple of times they looked like they might. So maybe Dmitri, now reaching sexual maturity, is looking to be at the top of the pecking order, as males generally are in single-male flocks?
Snicket also seems to have developed some not-very-prominent saddle feathers, the presence of which points to cockerel.
I've never heard more than one crow at a time, so it could be only Dmitri crowing, or they could be crowing separately. I typically hear one crow in the morning and that's it for the day, though.
Here are a few pictures of Snicket:
Here's Dmitri:
And here's a french black copper marans pullet hatched around the same time, for reference: