Charlie is approaching 6 weeks old and while it is still a tough call on whether she is a girl or a boy, here’s my prediction.
This is an adult male Black Copper Maran.
Photo credit: Thechickenhutch.com
This is an adult female Black Copper Maran.
Photo credit: mypetchicken.com
This is Charlie.
The beer is there just for size.
Here it is, (drumroll, please) – I think Charlie is a girl and these are my supporting reasons:
Posture
Even very young male chicks have a more upright posture. Charlie has a more horizontal natural posture (of course she does stretch upward but I’m talking how she stands at rest.) She seems to prefer the squatter, more sub-servant stance.
Feathers
If you look at Charlie’s throat, you’ll see that her feathers are pointing up and away from her throat while Rooster feathers tend to point downward, covering the sides of their throats. Also, her cape, which is showing some signs of copper dappling has rounded feathers and not the typical spiky neck feathers of a roo.
While we’re on feathers, Charlie’s wing feathers are all also rounded at the tips and while Charlie does have a bit of tail bling, her feathers are for the most part all the same length and are blunt at the ends and are not pointed like the feathers on a rooster are. Females of this breed have fairly large tails, just not the glorious water-spray tails you find on the males.
Comb
Roosters tend to get pink coloring in their combs very early. There is no pink at all in Charlie’s yellow comb and in fact, she has a very small, flat comb, even at 6 weeks.
Feet
Roosters’ feet are typically larger than hens. As we all know, Charlie had difficulty with her feet so, even though I’ve included this here, and while I happen to love her feet and think they are just beautiful, it really is a determinant I can’t use (yet).
So while I am not an expert in this breed (one data point does not a trend make) I am very confident that our little Charlie will one day be laying for us some of those gorgeous chocolate eggs.
And I couldn’t be more relieved.
UPDATE:
I’ve added a few more close-ups. Her cape coloring does concern me but I’ve seen some photos of female Black Copper Marans that have copper coloring around the neck.
You can see the copper coloring here but you can also see that her neck feathers are rounded.
This is a good picture of her non-existent comb.
