Bye bye Dietrich
I didn’t post about it at the time because I was too upset, but the Cuckoo Marans bird in the foreground of the photograph above did, after all, turn out to be a cockerel.
We’d named him Dietrich, which seemed an entirely acceptable name regardless of gender, and had him for about four months living with us. He started to develop different physical characteristics to the other Cuckoo Marans: a longer set of wattles (the dangly bits under the beak), and a bigger comb (the bit on top). But despite asking in various forums, nobody could say for certain that she was, in fact, a he—until the morning he started jumping on every hen in the run, still too young to really know what he was doing, but providing us with enough evidence to confirm his gender as not being acceptable in the long run to neighbours in an urban area.
tags: animal husbandry, chickens, chicks, cockerels, cuckoo marans, dowsing, eggs, hens, poultryWhen a hen is, in fact, most probably a cockerel
For weeks now, there’s been a question mark above the head of one of our Cuckoo Marans, as to whether it’s a hen or a cockerel. When young, it’s hard to tell. I’ve been praying this bird didn’t turn out to be a he, because I’ve grown very attached to the magnificent specimen. But with each passing day, the doubt slips away. The bird is bigger than the other one, it has an upright tail wth subtle splashes of metallic blue as well as the expected black and white stripes. It even stands differently, the female walking round with her body kind of oval and horizontal to the ground while the suspect male carries himself with pride and vertically.
tags: animals, battery hens, buff orpingtons, chickens, cockerels, cuckoo marans, hens, pets, poultry
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