Confused Cockerel

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Hello, your cockerel is " henny feathered" but that should not be a problem- lots of breeds have henny feathered males- and they are perfectly normal- pencilled hamburgs, Sebrights and Campines being a few- I would give him more time- he should mature- as for spurs -they will grow- young birds dont have big spurs -
I have a Poland hen who crows and calls the hens when fed- but she lays well and accepts the cockerel no problem- she's just a" bit Butch" :shock: :lol:
regards, David :)
 
I do just wonder if its actually a girl. Some come out of the cages with the most enormous combs and wattles ,it just looks 'she' shaped and as Mo said , feathered like a girl. It will be interesting to see what happens , if the wattles etc shrink or it crows. You can get all sorts of intersex,hermaphrodites and even dual sex chickens from chromosomal, hormonal and other abnormalities. You have to let us know what happens !! I really dont know if Frankenstein included poultry in his laboratory production line! Have fun with them.P.S. You are best to ignore me -I am actually the worlds worst chicken sexer!!!!!! Ros :lol:
 
Hi There

I might not know what this queer fella is, but I am certainly getting a good laugh from you good people trying to find out.
Will keep you posted on his/her development, or lack of it. Lol

If only a chicken could talk!

cheers

steve
 
It's still up for debate Steve ... :shock:

I'd go for hen that has hormone inbalance at the moment...
 
Hi there

Just a quick update, The hen/'cockerel gave his first cock crow today.

Still no action with the ladies but am convinced he's got his eye on one of them

cheers

steve
 
Hi there, I'm new to the forum I was wanting some information on warrens. I'd assumed that there warren cockerels which when crossed with the warren hem would produce.... another warren but after reading stuff on the net, this is not the case! So out of interest how does one breed some more??? What type of cockerel would you need to put to the warren hen.
 
Hello, warrens are hybrids developed by Tom Barron- there are loads of different hybrids -some with the same parentage but called different names by different breeders. A hybrid is made up of two or more pure breeds of chicken- so your warens will not breed true. If you want warrens specifically then you will need to buy some- but you can put any large fowl cockerel to your warren hens and the female chickens will be your own breed of "hybrids" and should be very decent layers. Take a look her for more information :-
http://poultrykeeper.com/hybrid-chickens.html

regards, David :)
 
Hi Jester

I aint no expert (as the saying goes).
However, I believe theere are 4 types of Warren.
The ones which I have are a cross between a RIR and a Light Sussex.
However, I dont believe it is as simple as just putting the two together and the result being a Warren.

The "Warren" has been genetically modified to be probably the best egg layer in the business. I suppose that means that the research labs have messed about for many years to alter this and that within the parents to produce the "Warren" offspring.

Having said that, a cross betwen the above two I mentioned would probably still produce excellent egg layers.

I was told that if you mate "Warrens" then the offspring will probably revert more towards one or the other of the parents, however, the offspring will not be a "Light Sussex" or "RIR" as such.

In my original batch of warrens I also took a cockerel from them. He has now started to crow so as, when and if, he becomes active I will be letting him have his way with a few of the ladies.

In the mean time, I have 12 LS and 12 RIR in the incubator (due anytime from this thursday onwards) and will be breeding them to produce a flock.

Hope that helps

cheers

steve
 
Ha ha! Now I may not know much about keeping chickens yet (save what you good folk and my books have told me) but I certainly know about Genetics! (I am a Biologist).......I actually teach A Level students about chicken genetics!!! So, here goes.........you breed RIR and Sussex to get Warren you say? Then you wonder what will happen if you breed a Warren hen and Warren cock? Well, you could end up with a right array of "Heinz" chicks! No guarantee......some will be like either parent and some will be more Warren like.

Not sure about the dodgy cockerell,.......I used to keep pigeons (retired racers, to prevent them being "necked", bit like rescuing ex-bats!)......one time, a male turned up and decided to move in with us. We contacted his owner who didn't want him back so we kept him. But he had no mate. Everyone else was paired up. He turned gay for a while, then when we did get him a lady friend, he crouched down to her. She was very confused. So thus followed me having to teach him about the birds and the bees. I kept lifting him on top of her when she crouched down (he just used to look confused when she did). In the end, he worked it out and they lived a long and happy life together. I hope this poor cockerell has a similarly happy life eventually. (Though all those women is probably enough to scare any bloke, I would guess.......talk about hen pecked!! :roll: )
 
Hi - I was reading something a while ago, and it mentioned that hens have only one developed ovary, and if it is damaged by infection or similar then there are insufficient female hormones and the bird begins to develop and look like a cockerel, and begins to crow, though I assume it would be infertile.

Do you remember the old rhyme " A whistling woman and a crowing hen are neither good to God nor men" Talking of which - why do you never hear work men or delivery men whistling a tune anymore!

All the best
Sue
 
Yes, agree with David - they call the RIR x LS lots of things. There are a number of large commercial companies that give them a name - such as ISA Brown, Bovans Goldline, Warrens etc and that is their own 'strain' of hybrid.

The parent birds are certainly not 'show' birds and would not conform very well to standards - this is because the parent stock has been bred and selected to give the best possible qualities for their egg laying daughters - they are not Genetically Modified but selected by trial and error - testing the offspring, measuring the results and selecting the best birds.

You can get something called Hybrid Vigor in the offspring = so their strains of RIR and LS may 'nick' and give more eggs than either of the parents lay, or the reverse may happen so once they establish their parent birds, they maintain a closed flock to get repeatable performance in the offspring.

Crossing RIR X LS will still give good results though, just not quite as 'optimised' ;-)

If you use show type birds - these have been selected for looks and can suffer in egg numbers - so it's a good idea to start off with utility type RIR and LS.
 
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