I have a black bantam 'hen' that hatched out some chicks and has raised one to be about 3 weeks old so far. Yesterday she and the chick were out in the yard pecking around and she just stuck out her chest and crowed like the biggest rooster I have. My husband was outside and heard the crow but didn't see what had caused all the noise. He didn't believe me but I saw it with my own eyes. Anybody ever hear of such a thing?

-- Marlene Leiby (mleiby@caprock-spur.com), October 15, 2000

Answers

We got one of the worthless crowing hens too. Usually they don't lay eggs either. Hence the old saying---A whistling girl and a crowing hen always come to some bad end.

-- Don (dairyagri@yahoo.com), October 15, 2000.

I have a silver duckwing bantam hen that was crowing this morning, wanting out. She hatched out two chicks about two weeks ago. The first couple of squeeks were pretty pathetic, but the last crow was better than most of the roosters can do.

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), October 15, 2000.

Maybe this is peculiar to bantams? I had what I thought was a hen with an identity crises and then he turned into a full blown rooster...it was supposed to be a female, buit you know how the sexing isn't 100%!

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@yahoo.com), October 15, 2000.

Yes, there are some crowing hens out there. Nothing to be alarmed about.

-- R. (thor610@yahoo.com), October 15, 2000.

I've heard the old saying. I thought that I read that it was a homone problem, since the crowing hens never layed. And old friend ((she's in her 90's now) used to say this to me, since I loved to go about whistling...still do!).

-- Leann Banta (thelionandlamb@hotmail.com), October 15, 2000.

Well the mentioned that crowed today is a good layer and this was the third clutch she tried to hatch out. Since she is still tending chicks I doubt if I get more eggs from her before spring.

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), October 15, 2000.

Don't know about crowing hens, but one of our roosters was walking around the chicken enclosure a couple days ago, making the clucking noise the hens do when they lay an egg! I looked up to see which of the hens was being a dummy and laying outside on the ground instead of in the nest boxes, and here was that big black rooster, walking around making that noise. Maybe he has a hormone problem? They are pretty amusing to watch, that's for sure. Jan

-- Jan in Colorado (Janice12@aol.com), October 15, 2000.

Remember reading in one of the Foxfire books, that it was considered bad luck by the old time mountain folk to have a crowing hen. Was said it was best to kill a hen that crowed.

-- john in S IN (jsmengel@hotmail.com), October 15, 2000.

We have a hen who will crow as well as any rooster occasionally. She is a good laying hen and a good mother having hatched out as many as 14 chicks.

-- Tiffani Cappello (cappello@alltel.net), October 15, 2000.

I had a seabright that crowed and so did her daughter.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), October 15, 2000.

My grandmother always said that people used to kill a crowing hen immediately as it was considered to be bad luck, if not the outright work of the devil himself!! While I've had some mean birds, I've never seen one I thought was possessed, my luck is always pretty bad, sometimes it's just worse, and actually the death sentence seems a bit much.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), October 16, 2000.

Thank you everyone for your responses. I thought I had a one-of -a - kind chicken but I guess she's not that rare. I don't think I'll put her to death, she has been a good mother. Marlene

-- Marlene Leiby (mleiby@caprock-spur.com), October 16, 2000.

I am so glad someone came up with the whistling girls and crowing hens saying. I was the whistling girl but never had a crowing hen.

-- Karen Mauk (dairygoatmama@hotmail.com), October 17, 2000.

Probably the best layer I ever had started crowing one year when she was moulting. We got a kick out of it. She had layed very late into the fall, and started up again very early in the spring with her usual tremendous output, but she had quit crowing by then. I think it was just a temporary hormone thing. She was a great hen!

-- Laura Jensen (lrjensen@nwlink.com), October 18, 2000.

Hens that start crowing will generally stop after the next moult and go back to being a hen.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), October 18, 2000.

I am glad to see that someone has the same thing happen to them. This is a rare phenomenon that can happen in poultry and that is the changing of sexes. I had a hen that changed into a full fledged rooster ( still have him) and since I am a vet tech I contacted the head of the poultry department at a large university and he told me that this does happen, but it is very rare. A chicken is like a snail or some types of fish, they can change sex depending on the envirenment and hormones. This is very crazy sounding, but very true. If you have anyu other questions, please ask.

-- Claudette (Clauzilla@aol.com), October 20, 2000.

Several months ago I got rid of my roosters because they began to attack people. One of the hens started started bossing the other hens around and "ruling the roost" so to speak. One day I saw her trying to crow. She's a good layer. Eagle

-- eagle (eagle@alpha1.net), October 22, 2000.