I have had a small backyard flock of chickens for several years, but have never owned any Barred Plymouth Rocks.

I have a question about breed standards. A workmate gave me a month-old Barred Plymouth Rock rooster. My family and I are extremely impressed with his unusual tameness and unvarying good humor. He is sociable and follows me across the yard like a puppy! He's now about four months old.

Because we were so thoroughly impressed with this bird, I purchased four more Barred Plymouth Rocks from a local feed mill, thinking along the lines of raising my own chicks in a couple of years. These younger birds are about two months old now, and I realized last weekend that while the younger birds generally resemble the rooster in body shape and coloring, their combs are completely different!

The rooster has a deep red, "pea" comb, as I understand they're called. It has a several short spikes on it, and a longer spike at the rear. The younger birds have the standard comb I'm more accustomed to.

My question is, which type of comb meets the standards for this breed? Or, are the younger birds not Barred Plymouth Rocks at all? I saw a picture in a catalog of "Production Blacks," which looked as if they were some kind of hybrid of the Barred Plymouth Rock. They had similar coloring to the Rocks, but appeared to be smaller and had floppy combs similar to Leghorns. The one picture in the catalog of Barred Plymouth Rocks has a rooster depicted with what appears to be a regular comb, but the hen's comb looks like a pea comb. Are there variations within the breed as far as the comb is concerned?

While the appearance of the different combs is not too vitally important to me, if I ever sell any progeny from this group, I want to be certain that I don't pass on any "throwbacks" or bad genes.

Thanks for your help!

Go to the links below, they have excellent pictures of what the breeds look like. I'm new to chickens too but from what I know Barred Rocks have single combs. It sounds to me like your rooster is a Domimique, they have rose combs which look to me a lot like pea combs but have the spike at the rear.

http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/
www.feathersite.com

Thats right,probably a dominique,but it just might be a seriosly defective Plymouth Rock.check your workmate's breeding stock,if they all have rose combs its a dominique.The mcmurray hatcher from above has them,you should call and ask for a free ctalogue.You should keep him,he's quite rare,don't get rid of him when he crows at night,put him in a box every night.The females are barred plymouth rocks and have correct combs.In the catalogue it may look like a rose comb because of size.

Thanks for the information. According to my workmate, the rest of their Barred Rocks have regular combs, but she concedes that the one they gave me may have Dominique blood in him.

I'm keeping him, because he's a good bird, but will not sell any of his offspring.

Thanks again!