the_kitchen__drawer
Songster
Oh boy, this will be a long post!
We bought 6 Whiting True Blue chicks from Murray McMurray. A straight run of three, and three pullets. Sure enough we received them on may 23rd, and three of the chicks were quite clearly pullets. I banded the other three, and in a couple days I could tell one was a pullet. It was also obvious one was a cockerel, which left one In the middle. And we still can’t tell their (named Gato) gender. Now, some backstory,
beofre this we had 6 Starlight green pullets from RK. One of them, Arya, took AGES to grow her tail out. If gendered by “tail”, she most definitely looked like a roo, but she did always have “pullet wings”. shes def a girl,though,clucking and all. All of this to say our little Gato has us very confused. Pics below, comparing them to Arya at a similar age, them to their sisters, them to their brother.
lets talk behavior. our cockerel, Zelenskyy, is all roo. He loyally follows his girls around, paces at their absence, and when his emotions are heightened, his comb goes bright red. He is bold, chargin our ducks when they picked on his ladies, and he is confident and intelligent. Gato, however... he hides with the girls, likin to try and fit under their wings. He never wanders on his own, or follow just one other chick. He is only semi confident when followin Zelenskyy. Aside from that,he is behaviorally no different than the pullets. So far,there has been no infighting. Zelenskyy has a similar comb, but gato’s does not get bright red. Zelenskyy even has a larger tail.
these are pictures of Arya at around a 3.5 weeks and then at about 5 or6 weeks.
(Arya is the orange dot,the Blake and white Streaked chicken on the bar)
And here is our current babies. Gato is the gray one with no tail. Zelenskyy is the dark brown and red one with white on his chest.
(You can see in this photo how Arya never really grew a big tail)
So.. what do we think? Wait and see is all I can really do right now!
We bought 6 Whiting True Blue chicks from Murray McMurray. A straight run of three, and three pullets. Sure enough we received them on may 23rd, and three of the chicks were quite clearly pullets. I banded the other three, and in a couple days I could tell one was a pullet. It was also obvious one was a cockerel, which left one In the middle. And we still can’t tell their (named Gato) gender. Now, some backstory,
beofre this we had 6 Starlight green pullets from RK. One of them, Arya, took AGES to grow her tail out. If gendered by “tail”, she most definitely looked like a roo, but she did always have “pullet wings”. shes def a girl,though,clucking and all. All of this to say our little Gato has us very confused. Pics below, comparing them to Arya at a similar age, them to their sisters, them to their brother.
lets talk behavior. our cockerel, Zelenskyy, is all roo. He loyally follows his girls around, paces at their absence, and when his emotions are heightened, his comb goes bright red. He is bold, chargin our ducks when they picked on his ladies, and he is confident and intelligent. Gato, however... he hides with the girls, likin to try and fit under their wings. He never wanders on his own, or follow just one other chick. He is only semi confident when followin Zelenskyy. Aside from that,he is behaviorally no different than the pullets. So far,there has been no infighting. Zelenskyy has a similar comb, but gato’s does not get bright red. Zelenskyy even has a larger tail.
these are pictures of Arya at around a 3.5 weeks and then at about 5 or6 weeks.
(Arya is the orange dot,the Blake and white Streaked chicken on the bar)
And here is our current babies. Gato is the gray one with no tail. Zelenskyy is the dark brown and red one with white on his chest.
(You can see in this photo how Arya never really grew a big tail)
So.. what do we think? Wait and see is all I can really do right now!
