why is my hen crowing when i have a rooster?

[Panamom]

so i have a pretty small flock. mentioned in my older posts, i have two lav orp hens, a salmon fav hen, a teeny tiny oeg hen and a oeg rooster. when i originally got my flock that i raised as babies, i had two lav orp chicks and two salmon favs (unfortunately, one of my salmon favs have passed away last year), and i got them out of the straight run bucket. as they grew up, i thought i had two roos, one of each breed. i thought my current salmon fav was a rooster when she was a baby; she was always aggressive and flighty, and now she’s at the top of the pecking order after the oldest hen passed. the other assumed rooster is named jiafei. she has a verryyy croaky voice, which made me think she was a rooster as a chick. but she lays eggs, and she definitely looks like a hen. she’s very vocal and likes to scream her head off. i thought she was sick originally since her voice was so croaky, but she’s about to turn two so i think that’s just how she sounds. but today she was screaming more than usual, so i came outside to check on her, and i found her crowing. unmistakable crowing—her head was cocked, she hit those notes and she kept crowing for a bit. i’ve heard of hens that crow because they’re at the top of the pecking order, or that there’s no rooster. she’s not at the very top, and we already have a rooster. i searched a bit online and saw that she might be sick, but she’s been acting normal, so i wanted to ask you chicken folks if anyone has any suggestions
here’s an old photo of her laying her first egg !

That is one pretty girl

 

[BackyardinWales]

My girls appear to have stopped crowing now that we have a couple of roosters. We did have some teething issues, and we had a cull one of our roosters, but the peace of the flock has again been restored.

 

[Chixnbacn]

My muran Shaimier has crowed mostly when extremely young but she does it sometimes still no problem just weird and we have seven roosters and seven drakes

 

[VegaCoyote]

There’s a difference between changing gender (roles, behaviors) and sex (genetics.) It’s not uncommon to see gender change in chickens, especially in hens with ovarian issues. I doubt that there is ever actual sex (DNA-level) change.

I’d say at the gonad level rather than the genetic; a lot of intersex conditions even in humans can be influenced by hormonal conditions in the embryonic stage, which can result in developing an ovary when pure genetics would lead us to expect a testicle, or vice versa.

Ofc, that’s mammalian development, where we have to take into account the hormonal conditions of an already up-and-running organism (the mother.) But, then, consider crocodilians and, I think, some turtles and tortoises, where the sex of the hatchlings is at least partially determined by incubation temperature.

Genetics and embryonic development are super weird, man.

 

[VegaCoyote]

That is to say, in the exceedingly rare case of a chicken who apparently goes through a full “sex change,” going from producing one type of gamete (eggs) to the other (sperm,) actually hasn’t changed their physical sex. They’ve always been intersex, with one ovary and one testicle- just that only one is active at a time. And this condition may or may not be genetically heritable.