In the Ideal order I got pretty much one of everything everyone else ordered. I am having a problem with my Plymouth barred Rock. Everytime I reach into the cage (its a wire cage on a rolling cart so my cats cannot eat them) the PBR charges at me with her feet like my adult silkie roos do. She kinda drops kicks me and to me that is a rooster behavior. Am I going to be disappointed and have to process my pullet because she's a roo or are PBR protective? At first I thought it was my ring attracting the chick so I took it off but she still attacks me.
The food is right there by the door so many she has an eating disorder? LOL
Who has raised Pymouth Barred Rocks?
Have had 2 barred rock roos and neither charged at people only a couple of cats that got too close. Only found out they were roos because they started getting a comb faster and seemed to be growing up rather then plumping out like the other chicks. All mine however are free range during the day. Maybe yours is territorial about her space.
maybe she is lonely. i had 20, & they are all still so sweeet. one that i sold to a friend was made into such a pet that it cries when left with the other chickens!
PBRs are good eating birds too though!
i have not noticed much difference in behavior. but you can tell the sex by the size of the spot on top of the head. i'll post a pic for ya later...
I have had Barred Rocks on and off over the years,
The hens are always docile and sweet.
But I handle them a lot and they know my presence.
Are you sure it's a hen? sounds more like a rooster to me.
And if a hen, she sounds scared for some reason
Hi LoraK---I was just reading that you can't judge a chicken's sex by behaviour until they reach sexual maturity. The author claims that until the hormones click in it is all due to individual personality. I am not sure if this is true....but maybe you just have a very dominant, aggressive pullet? Hope, hope......
She has plenty of friends, she is in with all my chicks. I will start holding her more. She is a bigger than any other chick and tends to peck at anything that moves. She was ordered as a pullet from Ideal. Oh well, maybe with more one on one she will mellow out. She does appear to be protecting the others. I just got home from delivering/meeting everyone for chicks and tried to introduce the silkies chicks (Yeti and the white one that has more colors coming thru BYH said it looks like her splash did so fingers crossed!) and nobody wanted anything to do with them, not their fault no one has hatched anything yet I just wondered if a broody hen would take to them. Oh so tired
Oh, the splash are so pretty. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you Lora! I'm hoping one of mine turns out to be a splash. My PBR's will be here this Friday. I'll be curious to see what their personalities are like. TF, I would love to see those pics telling the difference with the males and females. My PBR chicks will be in the local feed store on Friday, and first come first pic, so I want to get there early while the pickin is good. Would prefer pullets of course!
these are mostly males if that tells you something...
Hi janastasio, I don't have any pictures, but check page 5 of this old publication--it sounds helpful in sexing PBRs visually. Good Luck! http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/pr_histpubs/pubs/SB307.PDF
TF posted at the same time I did--I think the picture together with the verbal description should really help!
This message was edited Apr 20, 2008 8:26 PM
above was a couple days old. this is about 10 days or so [i think]. the one roosting turned out to be a female. she still roosts, now on the water jug, all by herself! another female roosts by herself, but with her head hanging done [limpneck!]
notice how small the females spots on their heads are, and of course as they feather in it gets even smaller...
the males have larger spots on top of their head.
not knowing at the time, i just took what i could reach [20 out of a bin of 200!] they were supposed to be Black Australorps!!! later i tried sexing by the feathers, but that came out about 50/50. now it is obvious who i swho, because of the combs/wattles, and the pullets have wider black bars, making them appear darker...
here they are later, under a red light, but you get the idea... going to read that link now... ^_^
that was excellent! i copied it here:
"SEX IDENTIFICATION IN PUREBREDS
BARRED PLYMOUTH ROCKS
It had long been recognized that the size of the light head
spots in Barred Plymouth Rocks varied in the two sexes. The
males tend to have larger headspots and the females to have
darker colored legs. However, this method has not been sufficiently
accurate to be of much commercial value.
Quinn and Knox (1939) attempted to separate the sexes of
Barred Plymouth Rocks by means of the intensity of the black
pigment in the down and legs. In different lots of chicks they
report 83.5, 86.1 and 91.8 percent accuracy.
Jerome (1939) describes a method of sex identification in
Barred Plymouth Rocks based upon the regularity of the outline
of the head spot rather than the size of the spot. Those chicks
having headspots irregular in outline and scattered in appearance
are males while the females tend to have headspots with
more regular outlines. The author claimed an accuracy of 90
percent or better when considering only the headspot and 95
percent if the color of the legs was included in the consideration.
The Canadian Department of Agriculture (Anonymous 1941)
issues an excellently illustrated bulletin describing the method.
It is stated in the bulletin that the method “is widely practiced
in Barred Rock chicks by commercial chick sexers.” Sex identification
is based upon outline of head spot, color of legs and
shade of down color. There are several types of male and female
head spots some of which are shown in Figure 1."
OMGoodness did I have a hard at first sexing my first batch are marans, only one maybe two were female. This last batch was almost all pullets, only 4 roos! I really lucked out. And one of the woman that bought three of my marans pullets asked what the roos were liked, I told her and she wanted one!!! So I gave him to her!!! No charge. I would rather see them as pets/breeders than in a pot.
My parents couldn't believe people (8 in all) would drive to pick up chicks. They loved how everyone was so friendly and nice. Its good to socialize your parents! LOL
So I sold everyone except 3 marans pullets, 3 roos, 2 silkies (one is Yeti just along for the ride), one silkie X marans. So I did pretty well. And I got to spend the day with my parents plus my brother was there too, with my hubby buying pizza and appetizers for everyone made it a great day!
Barred rocks tend to be a more aggressive breed. We have some but they are tame and sweet to us but on the upper end of the pecking order with the other chickens. In fact one is, I believe, above the rooster in the pecking order.
We have a neighbor with barred rock chicks and he has them in too small a cage. They are killing one another, literally.
oh, how sad....
Wow, I have naked neck with a injury, turned infection on the back of her head. It started out as a pecked spot and grew fast in a couple of days. I cleaned it out tonight (Calling Dr.Lora, Calling Dr.Lora, Dr.Lora to ER stat) put some antibotic stuff on it and a cute little square bandaid (so far so good). I am going to start him on a some liquid antibotics, I have to hit the grain store tomorrow. Should I isolate her alone or give the whole lot the antibotics?
well, i would isolate her just becsuse of the injury... do the others need antibiotics? i assume it is a pecking injury, but nonetheless the bandaid will be something to peck at...
I'd isolate. Anything out of the ordinary and they will peck peck peck.
So far so good, the bandaid is the same color as her skin Fingers crossed!
If it makes you feel better, I have a buff silkie hen that is constantly attacking my leg and shoes, so much so that we named her Shoe (double meaning shoo and shoe, LOL). I just chalk it up to a quirk, unless she ever gets hyper aggressive like a roo, then it's "I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight"! LOL!
I am taking her out of her element. She fell off my leg onto the floor (I am sitting on the loveseat and the floor is carpeted so she wasn't harmed) She tried and tried, finally getting back up and is has now made her way to my shoulder, I don't think I want a 8+pound chicken on my shoulder so I will not allow this plus its like her being at my level and she needs to be below me like everyone else LOL (that was a joke, well except for the chicken) I seriously hope that the white on the back of the head doesn't go for PBR because of this one was a cucko marans it would be a rooster! Infact one of the roos (I consider a roo) has the exact amount of white. I think I will take a pic to prove my point to the hatchery just incase!!
the info i read probably pertains to anything barred, is the cuckoo pattern an actual barring? if so, it is not just the size of the white spot, but whether it is uniform [female] or splotchy without borders [amle]...
I get my 6 chicks on Friday from the local feed store, hopefully the info above will help me get pullets. Last year when I got my 6 aracaunas I ended up with one rooster! I need some egglayers. My currentl flock is over 2 years old and slacking. I have 19 hens and only get 10-11 eggs per day. Is that normal? I'm seriously thinking it may be time to think about pulling a few of the older ones out so that I can incorporate new layers in. I dont think I could cull them though...... Have to give this some consideration. The other hard part is figuring out who lays and who isnt
I have four of my sisters PBR chicks in with my other chicks, and they are the most curious and outgoing, by far! They always peck at my ring, and they were the first ones to go outside and check it out when I first opened up the door to their new outside run. They don't take any crap from the other chicks either.
I call my barred rocks "The Fat Girls". They are pushy toward the other breeds, and they are the top of the pecking order. Our rooster is also barrred rock. He is friendly, never aggressive to people, and he takes his job VERY SERIOUSLY! He's always looking out for his ladies.
The barred rocks are more outgoing and curious than most of our other chickens. But most importantly, they have survived free-range life when other chickens were easy prey.