My husband swears we have a rooster up at the barn. He’s half again as big as the hens, and those Australorp hens are no slouches this year, in size. But there’s been no crowing, just an odd croaking noise coming from the flock. When his tail is up, you can see his feathers are a bit longer than the hens, and just starting to droop at the ends.
Also the most eggs we’ve gotten are 17 for 18 birds. Telling, that…..
I took this photo the end of September. I suspect the bottom bird is the rooster, due to comb and wattles. But you can see he’s no bigger than they are.
I think this is the same bird, taken the end of September. You can see he doesn’t have rooster tail feathers, even at this age. But he’s the only one with that big spiked comb.
While it was so warm on Tuesday I went up to the barn to wire the hose from the water reservoir to the heat lamps, so it won’t freeze. This also centers the lamps over the waterer and keeps it from freezing. There’s a stock tank heater in the reservoir.
While I was doing that, the rooster was outside mostly. My helper friend calls him a sissy rooster, as he disappears inside or outside depending on where we are at the barn. While the rooster was outside when I was working on the lamps, I heard the odd croaking call behind me. Wasn’t the rooster, for sure. I think it might be another Australorp, a hen, but I couldn’t pin point it.
So outside of his appearance, he sure has not acted like a rooster, at 7½ months. The 2 Barred Rock roosters we had during the summer started acting like roosters at about 3 months. They tormented the hens at night when they were locked in. This rooster hasn’t bothered any hens we know of.
So as long as he doesn’t start crowing, bother us or the hens unduly, he might live as long as they do, until October next year
Our EE rooster, TB was clearly a roo at two months! His name means Tail Baby, cause he had the tail feathers. At that age he was doing unmentionable things to his sisters. The barbarism is real, but he's turning out pretty good so far. He plays well with the hens and keeps a good eye, calling them in when there's a hawk or out when there's someone carrying a plate of leftovers. Clyde doesn't do too well with all that though.
All our roos have been clearly roos by at least 3 months. This is a first....
That's weird. The top picture is the only one where it's starting to look like a rooster, yet at 7.5 months there's usually no mistaking it. The other two pics the bigger combed ones have rounded feathers, you'd swear they were hens with larger than normal combs.
Super late developer or hermaphrodite? 😆 I'm curious to know if he ever does crow and confirm it.
Just when you think you've gotten the hang of chickens they throw a curve ball.
Omgosh, I just checked and it is an actual thing that they can be hermaphrodites! https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/3/100315-half-male-half-female-chickens/
Couldn't get the link to open, have be signed in or something...
Yeah, always something with chickens....
Seriously!? I wonder if it's a country thing.
There seems to be plenty on the internet anyway. I just searched "hermaphrodite chicken."
Usually an Australorp rooster gets a bit bigger. Mine was obvious after awhile. Mine did do the croaking type of crow at first tho. Maybe he's like Peter Pan and just doesn't want to grow up.
Yeah, he's a real scaredy cat to top it off. Well, we will see what happens as he gets older...
17 out of 18 eggs sounds telling. Poor bloke doesn't know what he is in for!
What are the feathers like on his neck? Straight feathers should be a rooster and rounded feathers would be a hen.
I've assigned my husband to investigate this tomorrow morning when he does chores. He was thrilled! LOL