anyone want to play hen or cock?

[ScaryHalloweenSquonkRAAR]

I know it probably seems really obvious, we have one brightly coloured one and two less bright ones.

But the bloke that sold them to me swore they were all hens.

Is flipper a cockerel?

pic on profile

Hmmm....I'm no expert but it does look like a cockerel to me.
take a look at this
or this one

yes, I'm fairly convinced that a boy has sneaked in

Tis a good job he is so gorgeous, or else we may have to think about letting him go. As it is, I don't think any of us could bear to be parted from him

Watch this space for baby chickens for sale...

It's good you'll be able to keep him, he is very handsome!

well... the landlord said we were allowed to keep chickens but definitely no cocks.

So we'll only be able to keep him if we either
a) hide him
b) hope that they won't have the heart to remove a small boy's pet
c) lie and tell them he's a she after all.

Ah, well lets hope he wont crow too much, hiding him should'nt be to much of a problem then.

They all go into the coop at night, so I reckon he won't crow till I let him out, and I won't be letting him out until I'm up, so he shouldn't annoy anyone...

I'm right, aren't I?

I hope you're right. Never kept a cockerel myself, only my little hybrid girlies.

Are they all the same breed & same age? If so, are his comb & wattles much bigger. How old is he/she - because 'he' looks quite big so crowing should be imminent. Which leads to the bad news...

My cocks are all shut in at dusk and let out in the morning, one crows during the night (nutter) and I can hear him from the room nearest the henhouse. They all crow in the morning whilst still shut up, if your neighbours are very close, they will hear them.

So if she's a he and your neighbours are likely to complain, I'd say get rid of him sooner rather than later and replace it with one you can keep.

We got a cockrel in our flock, he had to go back but we realised within a cpuple of days and sent him back straight away, I was quite sad but it is for the best because if the neighbours start complaining they could make you get rid of all the hens.

When I had hens our cockerells (one at a time) used to crow from the henhouse - but as it was enclosed it wasn't too loud.

By that age I would have expected to be able to differentiate by comb and wattle size - I quite often made guesses at about 2 weeks which turned out to be correct several months later.

well, the bloke that sold them to me said that they were all 5 months old.

And they were all hens.

And there were three brahmas and two minorcas.

I believe him about the other four but I don't know what to believe about this one.

Are there any hens with this colouring? Could it be a different type of chicken completely? It is obviously different from the two brahma girls but there could be other reasons for that... couldn't there?

I don't think the neighbours will complain particularly, we live in a big farming community and the crowing cock will have to compete with the lowing cows and the tractors revving their engines at the crack of dawn. But my landlords said I could only keep hens and not a cock.

I may be able to appeal to his better nature though if I explain that we thought we were getting a hen and were misled, and now ds (only 3 years old, bless him!) would be heartbroken if we took his bird away...