Ooopsss.. is one of my POL a cockerel?

[carolwildbird]

I collected my two sets of girls today, and they seem to be settling in quite well.. a few minor squabbles, but nothing serious. I think I have made an amateurs mistake, though.

I was so focussed on checking the health of the birds I didn't really look properly at the colouring of the welsummer. I am not terribly familiar with welsummers, and it wasn't till I got them home and been watching them in the hen house that I have a growing conviction that the welsummer POL has not got a well developed comb because its about to lay, but rather that its a cockerel.

The pictures of 19 week old welsummer cockerels that I have seen on google images seem very "cockerel-y", with dark, almost black chests, copper hackles. This one isnt very well developed in cockerel features, but it is much darker in the flanks and down the sides of its neck than the hen pics I've seen. It has a copper chest, but flanked by very dark feathers and it has one or two greeny glossy tail feathers.

At present its in the hen house acclimatising, so too dark to take pics today. These two pics came from the breeder (who is a backyard person, so maybe also not very experienced at sexing!). It looks henlike to me in these. In reality the colouring is more distinct...





Are there sufficient variations in welsummer colours that it could still be a girl? If girls never have any greeny sheen to their tail feathers then its definitely a cockerel.....

Duh! (beats head against wall)

 

[dinosaw]

Sorry to say it looks like a boy, he will have a final moult to go before he grows his adult feathers which is why he is a bit patchy, the comb is already bigger than most mature hens who have black inner tail feathers and brown outer with the cocks having black with green sheen. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of my Welsummers at that age to post for comparison. At 19 weeks I'm surprised there isn't any strangled crowing going on yet.

 

[Marigold]

Looks as if the feet are quite big and the legs sturdy as well ..... Are there pointed feathers on the hackles?
Have any of them laid yet? I don't know about Welsummers, but with a comb like that, I would expect a pullet to be laying by now.

 

[dinosaw]

Your right about the comb Marigold, this was Summer when she was about 2 years old I think, possibly a bit older.

 

[chrismahon]

So will you be able to exchange him Carolwildbird?

Obviously with that comes the extreme difficulty of introducing one new girl.

 

[carolwildbird]

I'm sure he's a male.. :-(. Should have looked more carefully yesterday . Oops. He seems to have changed overnight! Maybe being with 4 girlies has brought out his masculine side! He's not anywhere near as black as the pics I've seen of welsummer cockerels, but he definitely has the glossy green tail feathers developing, now I have seen him in proper daylight.



The breeder only had three spare (him and two black copper marans), so I will just give him back and stick with 5.. four copper marans and one cream legbar. In due course I may add two or three more if I see anything I fancy locally, but of course that will then require me to do a phased intro and find another coop (which I'm on the look out for, as a quarantine area etc. I do have an emergency back up involving three giant dog crates, but a permanent solution will be better!).

 

[Marigold]

Yes I think you're right, Carol. That's a lovely picture of him, and he looks very proud standing there. He's a beautiful bird. I'm glad you have the option of giving him back. Five girls should give you plenty of eggs over the winter if you can get them into lay before the daylight lessens too much to stimulate them. If you them wait to add to the flock, maybe until this time next year, you could achieve a variety of ages, so they don't alll become elderly at the same time.