I had one or two do that before. Eventually the casing kind of rubs off and the feathers spread out. You might be able to very gently press and rub them between your fingers and the sheath will sort of disintegrate under the pressure.
This is the kind of dark and glossy I mean. See the "cape" of dark red feathers? You should be starting to see those on Teddy's wings if she was a boy.
They would be a dark, mahogany red. Her coloration is female. The color black in chickens should be glossy and green in the light on a healthy bird, regardless of sex.
Your OE look to be pullets. The GLW has a suspiciously red comb for only 7 weeks, but that isn't a dead giveaway unless it really pops and gets bright in the next couple of weeks. I'm leaning cockerel but it isn't a done deal. I can't tell on the SLW. Assume it's a pullet until it either crows...
Hen/Roo game has a lot of rules. There are certain traits that cockerels will have at prepubescent ages that pullets are less likely to have (large red combs and wattles, namely), and there are certain colorations that only females can have that males never ever will (look up silver duckwing...
If they are Prairie Bluebell Eggers then they are cockerels. That is a sex-linked cross with barred males and solid females. I can't tell you if that is actually what they are though, but the color looks about right.
They're all being made into soup if there isn't a lot of meat on em. If there is, they'll be portioned out into quarters and breasts and used in crock pot meals. No matter the age, they will be cooked long and slow.
I might have to process them closer to 10 weeks than 16. I've butchered 16 wk old cockerels before and they've already entered their gangly teenage phase -- all growth spurt and no meat. I'll try a batch at 12 weeks and 20 weeks and see how it goes.
Hey guys, thank you for replying!
@U_Stormcrow: My All-Flock feed is 18%. The meat bird feed is usually 22-24%, but game bird feed where I am runs to about 30%. I have not compared prices between game bird feed and the previously mentioned feeds. My Ams are true Ams, not mixes (I do have EEs...
I have a flock of dual purpose chickens (Ameraucanas, Orpingtons, and Marans) that I can cross to produce sex links. Easy enough to sell the pullets, and I keep the cocks for table. However, I've just been feeding them regular chick feed and then all-flock feed from about 12 weeks on. I want to...
I love my Orpington, Harold, although his lieutenant, Obi Wan, who is a true black Ameraucana, is a close second. I had a pool of about 18 cockerels to choose from, and those two were the only ones to pass the Not an Asshole test. They're calm, respectful, alert, attentive to the hens, and they...
True Ameraucanas have two copies of the blue egg gene. EEs can have 1, 2, or none. If he is a true Ameraucana and your SGEs lay green eggs, then crossing them with him should give you mostly pullets that lay blue eggs and some that lay green eggs. If you get pullets that lay brown or tan eggs...
I'd brood them outside and away from the house, if at all possible, to keep fecal dust and dander down in your home. I wear muck boots into the coop that don't come inside. All I can suggest in addition to washing your hands is wearing a mask, and a mask AND goggles when you clean the coop.
Y'all. I have a PLAN. A perfectly good breeding plan that involves waiting until February to implement it and I come here and it's just whole forums of chicks! And hatching eggs! Remind me that I don't want to brood babies in winter, that I need a whole month to get the right roo x hen combo...
So 50% confirmed cockerels for the first hatch, and a little less than that for the second. That's entirely normal. Each individual egg has a 50/50 shot of being male or female and sometimes you just get weird RNG. My last batch of 19 had 15 cockerels. The batch before that had 8/18. Sometimes...