Another Hen Lost...

Well, as most of you know, we've had a rough couple of weeks. We'll be sharing these posts as well - we'd never intend to include the good stuff and not the bad, but we just HAD to get this one out, so here goes...

We got back from the RenFaire on Sunday night, and here we are trying to catch up on all our chores. Today, we were outside cleaning out the greenhouse to get ready to plant some cold-weather crops, when we started to hear something resembling a crow out in the orchard.

Mountain Man turns to me and says, "Did Game Bird just crow?" Then, we heard a crow again. Nope, it was just Big Boy. And then, ANOTHER crow...it WAS Game Bird!! And slowly, the pieces started coming together...

Game Bird was more colorful than the hens. He was protective of the flock. He was instinctive, and though he wasn't aggressive with us, he was certainly more aggressive with the other animals. He was ostracized from his own group. These are all things that pointed out that he was a rooster. The only reason we never thought of him as one was because he was supposedly 4 months old when we got him. That would have made him 6 months old now, when he started to crow. Either he's a REALLY late bloomer, or the person we got him from didn't actually know his age. In any case, we are excited to have him as a second rooster. Big Boy is beautiful, but a little dim-witted, so we're happy to have a rooster that has a keen awareness of his surroundings. As long as he stays friendly with the children, he'll be fine.

His timing was spot-on, though. Mountain Man was about to start calling him Blondie...

So, we lost another hen today. But, we gained a fine looking rooster... :)