Crowing Pullets

Something to Crow About!

by Anya O’Halloran,
Hen House Helper Coordinator & Hen House Assistant

Our pullets are growing up and are now nearly four months old!

Since the day we received our chicks, Sharon and I have wondered how many of them would be roosters.  When you order chicks from a hatchery, you have a choice between sexed or straight run chicks.  We ordered sexed female chicks, since we want them for egg production.  But because it is so hard to identify the sex of a chick, with the number of hens we ordered you usually get a few males anyway.

Now that our chicks have grown up into pullets, we can begin to see physical rooster qualities coming through on some of them – bigger combs and wattles, larger tail feathers, and larger body sizes. Based on these qualities we believe we have at least five roosters in our flock!

But the quality that really confirms whether our “suspected roosters” are really roosters is when they begin to crow!

One of our “suspected roosters”, a Black Australorp whom Sharon named "Oscuro" (which means dark in Spanish) recently confirmed his identity as a rooster.  Early one morning just before the sun came up, Oscuro gave his first short and immature crow ever(?)!  I was able to witness this exciting moment and it took me by surprise!  All the other chickens in the flock reacted similarly to the way I did.  After his first crow, they all stood there frozen for several seconds, taking in this new experience.  I wonder what was running through the hens’ heads.  For me, my thought was – Oscuro just crowed, so he really and truly is a rooster!

Ever since that morning, Oscuro greets the day with 3-5 crows just before sun-up.  Then he goes about his day, crowing whenever the urge strikes him.

A few days after Oscuro’s first crow I decided to take this video so that I could share the excitement with you all!  Here it is…

 

 

I continue to eagerly wait for “first crows” from our other four “suspected roosters.”  It has not happened yet – at least not that I’ve heard – but any day now they’re sure to decide that they have something to crow about too!