Thursday, June 30, 2022

Double Trouble, or A Crow and a Croak

Several weeks ago one of the Wyandottes began to crow. Strange little sounds at first, but eventually an undeniable Er-Er-Errrrr. The chicks were thought to be all female, but I've heard there's about a ten percent error rate in the sexing of newly hatched chicks, so it wasn't surprising to get a rooster in a batch of eight. 

Meanwhile, the large Light Brahma, who is noticeably bigger than all the other chicks (Brahmas are naturally a big breed) began to grow a larger comb and red wattles, and to look more and more different than the other. That's not a sure sign of roosterhood, as there's a lot of developmental variation in growing chickens, but it made me suspicious. 

A couple of times a different sound came from the chicken pen - a deeper sound, more croak than crow, that I initially assumed was the Wyandotte's voice changing. But a couple of days ago, when Pam and I went down to move the coop and pen to a new spot and the chickens were, to use the phrase literally, cooped up longer than normal, we heard both the Wyandotte crow and the new croak, and were able to peek in and observe the large Brahma in the act. 

So, what will be the fate of these guys? I was anticipating my first year of chicken rearing to be a simple time learning to live with a flock of egg producing hens. A rooster greatly complicates things, and two... well, that's double trouble in the works. 



1 comments:

LEAF said...

If you have to be the hand of fate....well, you have to. Will be rooting for the right solution for you to appear.