# Brain twister



## pigeon george (Aug 7, 2003)

Four year old hen, sire is just a year old and his first time mating. Three sets of eggs not fertile. She has produced before, he was hatched in my coop.
His sibling is a sire red check, his mother was a yellow with a funny white cap.and father was a blu check, his color is blu bar with a funny white cap.
The two don't change often on the nest and sometimes at nite they both sit on the nest, he doesn't coo to any other hens and in fact never saw him coo
So the color to me seems off to sex the bird and the behavior makes me wonder if it could be two hens??? I guess eggs aren't always one and one but surprised the hen would lay without " doing it " ....until I see four eggs I don't know what to think??


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## Woodnative (Jul 4, 2010)

If those are indeed his parents.........the yellow with the funny white cap and the father blue check.....and by yellow you mean ash yellow (ash red dilute) and not recessive yellow (recessive red dilute). Then his parents are a sex-linked mating....and all blue offspring (like your bird in question) will be HENS. So yes it appears it is a hen (which also explains the behavior). Surprised you have not gotten 4 eggs, so somebody is not laying. Hens sometimes do pair up, more likely if a proper mate is not available but not always. Cocks can too but less often and their relation is usually more quarrelsome. They probably are "doing it". However, it is the process of having mate that stimulates a hen to lay, and even in adjacent cages birds can eventually pair up and be stimulated enough to lay. When I had pigeons as a teenager I had a pair of hens for a while in my loft. They would lay 4 eggs and a couple of them even hatched (some extra hanky panky going on there).


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## pigeon george (Aug 7, 2003)

Well looks like there is a ton of information for me to absorb about color genetics. Thanks for that, now that I think about it the third clutch of eggs was kinda close to me pulling the second clutch.....must have been the other hens eggs, and that was when I saw the two of them on the nest overnight. Well guess that serves me right for not having enough sires in the coop. Thank you again for the color insight.


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