# telling the rooster apart



## squshnut (Sep 5, 2011)

I was given 12 young chickens. I am allowed 6 where I live but no roosters.
How can I tell the rooster before they start crowing.
the chickens are mutts, the product of some banty hens and some other types of chicken. So i can't tell by size.

There is no back sprurs on any of them.
I tryed looking at there bottoms, but I don't see any diifference. 
There are lrg red combs on some and some have double row combs. A couple have feather puffs on ther head , I am pretty sure those are hens.
I'd like to put the roosters in the freezer to make more room in the coop for the hena.
It's been years since we've had chickens.
Any help appeciated.


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## Freyadog (Jan 27, 2010)

How young? 

Before OURS starts to crow the feathers on the tails of our roosters start to get long. the hens stay pretty short. but those feathers right at the backend start to poke further out. like um, there is the tail feathers, the little cone shaped feathers and then there will start to be longer ones there, sort of on top.

ours are mutts also and we can usually tell before they start to crow. dont know if this is any help or not but just going with what we have that is the way we tell.


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## squshnut (Sep 5, 2011)

I don't know how old they are. All I know is the person i got them from started with 3 pairs . And they produced enough hatched eggs this year so they had 75 -100 chicks running around. She had no idea when they were hatched out.
Of the 12 I got Only one still sounds Like a chick.


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## Freyadog (Jan 27, 2010)

I have been sitting in the kitchen watching our chickens. We free-range our birds.

The hens have a cone shaped set of feathers that stick up on their butt. the roosters young and old, from my observation, have a slight cone but the feathers instead of sticking straight up are sticking almost straight out the back with a smaller cone shape on their butt. they are all longer than the hens feathers. this is about the best I can do. there is a way to turn them over and tell but I for one am not gonna check a chickens behind. so we have what we have until they start to crow then into the pot they go.

wish I could be more help.


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## squshnut (Sep 5, 2011)

Well I got 3 picked out as roosters.
They have thin wispy orange feathers over the their black back on each side of tail.


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## Freyadog (Jan 27, 2010)

sounds like from your description that you got yourself 3 roosters.


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## fedorthedog (Apr 14, 2011)

Long tail feathers, they will be larger than hens of their breed, more red on the head and comb


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## cnsper (Sep 20, 2012)

Photos will let us help you better. If you can post some pics that would help. Each breed is different so the colors really do no good.


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## Freyadog (Jan 27, 2010)

The hens that we have, very mixed, almost all of the feather stand up in a cone shape. From what I am seeing the feathers look like, um, a shag hair cut, they are sticking up but they are layered, sort of. 

One of our roosters have a fan type tail but the feathers still stick straight out the back. and they all look like they are the same length.

yep pictures would help us identify the roosters from the hens.


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