White Leghorn - Pullet or Cockerel

[CaptainCat]

Hi all,

Photos below are of my 9, almost 10, week old white leghorn purchased from Chickens for Backyards. I am wondering if she might be a cockerel as her tail feathers are filling out longer than my other pullets She has always been more adventurous than the others and she will sometimes charge my dog when he’s in their run. Fingers crossed she’s a pullet, but would love to hear what yall think.

Thank you!

 

[The Coop Crew]

I’m not very good at this but I would say cockerel but I could be very wrong haha.
Looking at the feathers they look more “pointed” than round to me but I’m super new at this. Let others chime in! I’m just here to learn and see if I’m getting better at identifying gender

 

[The Coop Crew]

@wrathsfarm what do you think?

 

[CaptainCat]

I’m not very good at this but I would say cockerel but I could be very wrong haha.
Looking at the feathers they look more “pointed” than round to me but I’m super new at this. Let others chime in! I’m just here to learn and see if I’m getting better at identifying gender

I’m the exact same, and that’s exactly what I was thinking! Looking forward to learning

 

[Gavinthechickenman]

Pullet is my opinion I don’t see any saddle feathers

 

[CaptainCat]

Pullet is my opinion I don’t see any saddle feathers

YEY, thank you!

 

[NatJ]

Hi all,

Photos below are of my 9, almost 10, week old white leghorn purchased from Chickens for Backyards. I am wondering if she might be a cockerel as her tail feathers are filling out longer than my other pullets She has always been more adventurous than the others and she will sometimes charge my dog when he’s in their run. Fingers crossed she’s a pullet, but would love to hear what yall think.

Thank you!

Is the bird crowing? If yes, then cockerel.

But if it is not crowing, I lean toward "pullet" at this point.

Leghorns mature quickly, and grow up to have very large combs and wattles. I would expect a Leghorn cockerel to have a comb and wattles that are bigger and more red than what I see in the photos.

I would also expect a Leghorn male to be crowing by now (early maturity!), and maybe growing saddle feathers (long skinny feathers with pointy ends, that grow from the back and eventually hang down on each side of the tail.) Or it might take a few more weeks for a cockerel to have any visible saddle feathers.

Leghorn hens have rather long tails compared to some other breeds. I do not see a reason to be worried about the tail feathers in the photo.

For comparison, look at the photo on Hoovers website:
https://www.hoovershatchery.com/WhiteLeghorn.html
They show a partly-grown female and a partly-grown male, that might be about the age of your bird. Both have similar tails, but the combs are very different and make it obvious which is the male. I think I see saddle feathers on the male in the picture, too.

https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/pearl_white_leghorn.html
McMurray hatchery has a really pretty Leghorn hen as the first photo right now. She has a tail even larger than your pullet. One of the other photos shows a cockerel with a nice read comb, obvious saddle feathers, and almost no tail-- a nice example of how tail size can be quite misleading at ages like this.

 

[CaptainCat]

Is the bird crowing? If yes, then cockerel.

But if it is not crowing, I lean toward "pullet" at this point.

Leghorns mature quickly, and grow up to have very large combs and wattles. I would expect a Leghorn cockerel to have a comb and wattles that are bigger and more red than what I see in the photos.

I would also expect a Leghorn male to be crowing by now (early maturity!), and maybe growing saddle feathers (long skinny feathers with pointy ends, that grow from the back and eventually hang down on each side of the tail.) Or it might take a few more weeks for a cockerel to have any visible saddle feathers.

Leghorn hens have rather long tails compared to some other breeds. I do not see a reason to be worried about the tail feathers in the photo.

For comparison, look at the photo on Hoovers website:
https://www.hoovershatchery.com/WhiteLeghorn.html
They show a partly-grown female and a partly-grown male, that might be about the age of your bird. Both have similar tails, but the combs are very different and make it obvious which is the male. I think I see saddle feathers on the male in the picture, too.

https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/pearl_white_leghorn.html
McMurray hatchery has a really pretty Leghorn hen as the first photo right now. She has a tail even larger than your pullet. One of the other photos shows a cockerel with a nice read comb, obvious saddle feathers, and almost no tail-- a nice example of how tail size can be quite misleading at ages like this.

This is so helpful. Thank you so much! She has not been crowing, and after looking at the photos from the hatcheries, I can definitely see what you’re talking about with saddle feathers and significantly more red comb. Glad my little girl is still my little girl

 

[The Birb King]

Most likely a pullet since Leghorn hens still have giant combs. At that age, my leghorn pullets had the biggest combs of all the other breeds, even the cockerels.

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

Most likely a pullet. NatJ covered everything, nothing to say there. Except saddle feathers occur in both genders, it is just that males have pointed ones and females have rounded ones.