(I posted this question on a farm q&a site and got no reply.)
We got two hens in August when they were 14 weeks old. They are now over six months old and have not laid yet.
I want to read up on the breed but don't know the name of the breed. (Neither does the guy who sold them to me.)
I tried to find a keyed site on the internet where I could enter plumage color, size, etc., and get the breed that way. Couldn't find one. All the sites expect you to know the breed name first.
Here is a pic. Sorry they look so awful, they're soaking wet. It's been rainy all week. Usually they look nice and shiny, not all droopy and depressed.
They are huge. My husband thinks they might be roosters. That would certainly explain the lack of eggs. But I think they're hens.
Thank you all. DGE's hint answered one question -- we have never heard them crow! I remember when I was a farm girl that the roosters started crowing when they were only about half grown -- very funny, by the way, because they have funny little voices. So: they're hens. (We had only Barred Rocks when I was a kid. They were meat-and-egg birds.)
From Karrow's site, I didn't find my chickens BUT I learned enough to decide that they're probably meat birds, not layers. They may lay a little, but not as devotedly as our former breeds did.
We have never put any of our chickens into the stew pot, because when they 'retired' from laying, we thought they should live out their lives in dignity, and they agreed.
But in this case we may make an exception.
Posts: 6256 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
DGE's hint answered one question -- we have never heard them crow! I remember when I was a farm girl that the roosters started crowing when they were only about half grown -- very funny, by the way, because they have funny little voices. 
So: they're hens. (We had only Barred Rocks when I was a kid. They were meat-and-egg birds.)
