who's a hen?

[SSSnco]

howdy! i'm new to BYC but have had chickens before. where we live now is fox city, my husband built me a (so far, fingers crossed!) predator proof coop and pen. he brought home 3 dozen eggs from a friend, i hatched 23 and all are healthy at 10 weeks. just this week one of the boys started trying his little crow, and the coop really is crowded. i think a dozen would be healthy.

i can tell for sure that 9 or so are hens, and i'm almost positive about 5-6 roosters. problem is that they are heinz57 chickens! I have what looks like one buff orp, one RIR, one aracuna (both hens), 6 pure black ones who ALL look like roosters, the rest are white red black and brown. of those, a couple that look like leghorns.

i only want eggs, and with the foxes around between the trouble to build another coop and the extra feed, i need to cull soon.

how do i tell the boys from the girls? any tricks would be welcome.

 

[Judy]

Look around in this forum and develop a bit of an "eye" for it: https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/15/what-breed-or-gender-is-this

The pointy saddle and hackle feathers on males, males often feather a little more slowly and stand more upright, plus their combs and wattles redden earlier -- there are a bunch of clues, but in the end, eggs or true crowing are of course the only guarantee. The good news is, the usual age of the first crow (around 12-16 weeks) is also a good age to butcher and still get a tender chicken, if you are OK with this solution. They aren't full size and it's not the most economical time, of course, but they are tasty....

 

[SSSnco]

Thanks Judy, and i did find the diagram that helped a lot! i think i'm getting confused bc i've had black australorps before -- the hens even had rainbow feathers and a few long curvy faethers. on my (spotty) white ones, when i let them out of a morning, most of them fluff their neck feathers out! i think they're trying to confuse me! the one RIR has ared comb and wattles but i'm pretty sure she is a hen, had a hen and a roo before the hen was pretty bold. all i know for sure is that i won't be wearing flip flopa in the pen any more. they peck harder every week!

 

[Island Roo]

Thanks Judy, and i did find the diagram that helped a lot!

Can you post a link to the diagram?

I have some chicks that are starting to bump chests to see who's tougher. I tend to think they are males. Anyone know of behavioral clues to sexing - other than crowing and egg laying?

 

[SSSnco]

i seem to have lost my ability to copy and paste links -- the organic brain is not running right ttoday! here is the chart, though!