What is the average age of maturity?? (crowing & eggs)

[Guest]

Hi,
New member here!  I was so glad to find out about ABC (I\'d had so much misinformation about blue egg layers in the past) that I ordered some chicks from Paul Smith back in May (Hi Paul!!).  

I have two questions: 1) At what age can you tell the cockerals from the pullets (aside from the obvious onset of crowing ?)  In the past with other breeds I\'ve been able to see pointed hackle feathers at various ages.  The chicks are now 11 weeks old and I\'m pretty sure one of the 6 is a male due to his larger body size and redder larger comb.  He\'s been bigger than the other 5 ameraucanas for about 6 weeks now.  I also have a second chick that has a smaller sized, medium colored red comb.  This second chick is in between the large one and the 4 smaller ones in overall body size.  Make sense?  Think I\'ve got two males here?  

2) Also, what is the average age they lay their first eggs?  I have six other rare breed chicks (a week older) from a hatchery mixed in with the ameraucanas and it is interesting to see their development compared to each other.  

Thanks in advance and I look forward to becoming an active participant in the ABC forum  

thegildednest

[John]

I found the first bantam pullet egg of the year this morning.  My first hatch was on Feb. 27th, so the oldest birds in that coop are just 5 months old.

[Mike Gilbert]

Gildednest,
What variety did you get from Paul?   With wheatens and blue wheatens you can tell from an early age by the way they color up.    In some varieties the males tend to feather out slower on the back than the females.    Otherwise, just keep checking for those pointed saddle and hackle feathers along with the size of the comb.

[Guest]

John Great, thanks I\'ll be watching carefully at 5 months of age for the first eggs.  Woohoo can\'t wait!!!

Mike Of the 10 birds they should be: two splash and so far that is clear, 2 blue (of which one was sadly DOA) and the rest black.  My friend took 3, two of hers are black and one is splash. (I checked carefully by the toe punch code info that Paul gave me for each chick) So the remaining birds I kept should be 1 splash, 1 blue and 4 black BUT the coloring doesn\'t seem to match.  One is definitely splash, two are definitely black, one looks white with no splash at all, two look blue with neck/head and cape feathers dark but not quite black.  I\'m hoping they are these varieties even though I was expecting mostly black.  I also realize at 11 weeks of age this isn\'t their adult plumage.  So should I expect to wait until 5 months of age to see their adult plumage and know for sure?  It\'s hard to imagine that the white bird will actually change to black she\'s so light.  Would posting a picture of the six together help identify the roosters or are they still too young?
thegildednest

[Mike Gilbert]

A picture would help, but from your description it sounds as though you may have only two good blacks.   The two \"tweeners\" probably resulted from a cross between a black and a blue.
The specific shade of blue can be highly variable.  When I crossed the two varieties  I sometimes got a few charcoal colored birds - not black, but too dark for blue.   If they are good otherwise, they might work as breeders with your blacks, but I would hesitate to use them with blues.  Best to grow them out and see how they look at maturity.

[Guest]

Hi Mike,

I\'m not planning on being a breeder per se other than to share the chicks with friends, so I\'m not really concerned with them being the \"proper\" color.  At this point, I\'m just interested in the attractive colors and am excited to see how they all \"turn out\", it would be great if those three aren\'t solid black (since 2 are) just for my own personal eye candy enjoyment  

Will take some pictures and try to post them in the next few days.  

In the past my first rooster didn\'t crow until about 15-16 weeks old, but my friends black tailed buff japanese has been crowing since about 8-9 weeks old.  What is the average age of crowing for the ameraucanas or is it subjective to each bird?