Back in July, Penguin got a very sweet gentle Easter Egger chick in a bantam assortment from Ideal Poultry.  As a chick, it was kind of pale buff and grey colored.  As seen in the photo below on the right, in comparison to my other bantam Cochins, it is a little larger than bantam.

As it grew, it was generally lavender (pale gray) with accents of yellow and a little buff around the neck and chest.  Based on temperament and on feather growth on the wing bows and tail, for the first few months, I was pretty sure it was a pullet.  Then it started to change colors, first getting a dark slate blue colored head around 6 weeks old, then around 13 weeks old, reddish patches in the shoulders and wings.  Ugh Oh!  I was getting really worried about this change in color because I read in

one really long thread at BYC about sexing EEs by color alone, and that Easter Eggers are always males when they are light-colored like this one, especially if they get red on the wings. However, the comb was still very pale and tiny with only a single row.  Also, I didn’t see any hackles, sickles, saddle feathers that screamed rooster so far.

When this Easter Egger was 13 weeks old, I posted its picture in the “What breed or Gender” forum at BYC to see what the experts thought.  The photos above are the ones I added to the post.  Based on the photos, the votes were mixed, but enough so that I decided to keep this chicken until it either crowed or laid an egg.  Meanwhile, I set up an isolation pen in the garage.  Just in case it started crowing, I would have a place to keep the noise muffled from disturbing neighbors (or husband) temporarily until I found a home that could take a rooster.

Four weeks ago, at 4:45 AM, loud repeated crowing came out of the coop, enough to wake both my husband and I up from a sound sleep.  Oh no, it must be the Easter Egger!  So outside I ran in my PJs to see what was up and to quiet the culprit down.  Well, after a few minutes of spying on the coop, it turned out to be Penguin!  She has done it a few times before on the rare occasion over the last few years.  So, into the garage isolation pen she went, along with a stern lecture about how “the city prohibits crowing fowl and that she would be looking for a new home if she makes a regular habit of it.”  She must have gotten the gist of the conversation because we haven’t heard her crow since.

Fast forward a month and the chicken is now 20 weeks old.   I went on a Girl Scout sleepover with my troop at Sea World on Saturday and left my son in charge of the chickens.  I returned home last night to warm hugs and a wry smile from my son.   He went to the fridge and proudly pulled out a green egg!  Boy was I doing the happy dance!  This chicken is definitely a pullet after all; she officially laid an egg because none of my Cochins have ever laid that color.

Even if I thought it was a female for sure, I would have said we were weeks away from her laying.  The egg took me by surprise because the chicken has not been vocal like a pullet getting close to point of lay, or squatting, or even very red in the comb yet.