Will females spar with males?

[Nicos]

I'm just starting to wonder if one of my 12 week old Marans may be a male

'She ' has recently developed a twisted beak and needs a bit of help with her food, but the other day I watched 'her' staring at one of her male siblings- face on , and ruffle 'her' neck feathers- then they both lept at each other feet first.
The male ran off and she did exactly the same with another of her male siblings.
'She's'about 3/4 of their size- and always has been , and her feather development was- and still is- very clearly female.

I just wondered whether being hungry may have made her agressive to her male siblings when there's food at stake.

I'll know for sure if she starts crowing- but I really don't want to allow myself to get too attatched if we're going to end up eating her! ( hand feeding 'her' every day isn't helping with this either!!!)

What do you think????

[RichmondHens]

She may still be female, just a feisty one! I caught two of my sussex crosses (11 weeks) fighting yesterday, clearly one male, one female. So don't get disheartened just yet.

However if she/he has a twisted beak, then if she/he is not feeding enough, that would account for the size difference. The males may also be picking on her because they sense she is not "quite right".

In any case, you may have to make a decision on humane grounds whether or not you should continue helping this youngster, if it is going to have ongoing problems feeding, regardless of what sex it is.

[Nicos]

Ha..and I thought Marans were supposed to be calm birds
Thanks for that RH!

I think in my heart of hearts we know we are feeding up this'lass' for the pot- she's clearly growing and eating so if we can just bring her on a bit more as a meat bird then that's be good.

She's certainly not starving- just 1 in 8 bits of food get swallowed when picked off the floor- but when hand fed she guzzles her way through a handful in less than 3 mins!! wet bread, porridge etc gets scoffed at the same rate as the other chooks

Clearly she'd struggle to produce eggs which is a real pity cos out of the 6 fertile eggs bought we'll be left with Petal- the one which had the hernia- and she's really much smaller than the others.
( I just think a few more fertile eggs might be a good idea don't you??)

[elizajay]

Go for it Nicos, marans are great in my book, so handsome and eggs are defo yummy.

[Suechooks]

Definitely you're needing more fertile eggs - just to give you more options you understand!

[RichmondHens]

Go for it!!!!!