French Black Copper Moran

My money on...........rooster.

ninnymary said:

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I could be wrong......my wife says I am ALL the time....

Mary you have a pretty flock. I can't tell if your Australorp is a roo or not. Just have to wait and see.

@Ridgerunner I always thought that you had the prettiest flock. What breeds did you mix up to achieve such a lovely flock? I know you had Speckled Sussex in the mix.

@canesisters can you expound on the virtues of Speckled Sussex?

I currently have eggs in the incubator, that flock is an EE rooster, 1 Cream Legbar hen (blue egg layer), 1 Welsummer hen (dark brown speckled egg) and 3 EE hens. I have always admired Speckled Sussex, maybe I need some of those. I have an EE flock of 11 hens, most days I get 9-10 eggs from them. They were hatched from the 3 EE hens in the first flock.

@baymule my s.sussex girls have always been the friendliest of the bunch. They will eat from my hand & follow me around even getting to be a bit of a nuisance under my feet. One of them will invite herself into my lap when I sit out there. They are curious and 'brave'. If there is something new to explore, the Sussex girls are always the first to check it out. They are medium sized with a bright chestnut color covered in little white spots. They usually get more white each time they molt. They lay med to large light brown eggs that sort of have a pink tinge to them. They lay pretty regularly and for several years. Mine have only gone 'broody' once - two of them at the same time. They took turns sitting and then watching the chicks. My girls weren't great mothers though. When the chicks were about 2 weeks old, one of them suddenly decided that they were vermin and attacked. Mom got tossed out of the brooder and I raised the rest of the chicks alone.

That's a lot tougher call than it should be at that age, especially since I want it to be a pullet so badly. The black pigment is masking the color of the comb but the wattles look kind if red. I think I see some sharp hackle feathers, some rounded ones too. Comb size isn't horrible for that age. Like Seed I could be wrong but my money is on male. That's hard to say.

@Ridgerunner I always thought that you had the prettiest flock. What breeds did you mix up to achieve such a lovely flock? I know you had Speckled Sussex in the mix.

Speckled Sussex, Delaware, Black Australorp, Buff Orpington, and Buff Rock from hatcheries. I got some designer Ameraucana from a lady working with a consortium to create a new color/pattern of Ameraucana, black mottled, to get the blue/green eggs.

@canesisters can you expound on the virtues of Speckled Sussex?

I only kept one Speckled Sussex hen, I don't think that's enough to be statistically significant for all SS. Breed tendencies are just that, tendencies, any one individual can vary wildly from the average. Another way to say it is that you need enough so the averages mean something. Anyway, that one hen never went broody and laid medium sized eggs but a lot of them. Kind of light brown if I remember right. She was not the dominant hen but was closer to the top of the pecking order than the bottom. She was a nest hog, took a while to lay her egg and would not share a nest. Cane's story is different but I don't handle mine or try to make them pets. And she had more.

I had two different SS roosters, one from Cackle and one from Meyer. Both made a nice carcass and yes, SS are beautifully feathered. Both were good flock masters. One of them would help a broody hen take care of her chicks if some got separated from her. The same one was human aggressive toward my chicken sitter, a high school girl, but she started out afraid of them. He could tell.

All in all not my favorite breed, that would be Black Australorp. But not bad.

ninnymary said:

Perhaps I wasn’t clear Lol. The closest I can describe it is a yawn. Almost like one with the neck stretching out a little.

I’ve only seen this being done once and it turned out to be a rooster which I don’t want.

Mary

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WAS THE YAWN ACCOMPANIED BY A STRANGLED SOUND? LOOKS LIKE A HEN. Not yelling -too lazy to change.

No strangled sound. But I've seen one of them do this before and she started crowing about 2 weeks later. At what age do they start crowing?

Mary

I have a hen that "crows". It's my old BA girl.
Not trying to muddle things, just sayin'.