Thursday, November 5, 2009

Fluffy, the Rooster!



So, the cute little baby chick my daughter named Fluffy, turned out to be a rooster!  Oh, the joys of getting baby chicks - although they say they are sexed, I've learned that you have to keep in the back of your mind that you may have a rooster when you asked for a hen!  Luckily she had named him Fluffy, a decidedly unisex name, and not Petunia or Lucy - although Fluffy is not the most masculine of names, hopefully he doesn't have a complex!  We were also not too put out because the others we bought really are hens.  Fluffy always did have a slightly different sound he made as a baby chick - sort of this singing/purring sound - that none of the others made.  Should have been clue #1... then, his comb on his head started to grow before any of the others - clue #2... then his tail feathers started to look just a little bit longer than the rest, then a LOT a bit longer - that was clue #3... but the best of all was one day, he started to try to crow - the funniest thing ever, like a teenage boy going through puberty - it was this scratchy, high-pitched, then low-pitched sound that cut in and out.  But, then, about 2 weeks later, his little rooster internal clock kicked in, and at about 6am, I got my first wake up call.
Before you buy baby chicks, check your local zoning and city ordinances to be sure that #1, you can have back yard chickens, and #2, if they allow roosters.  If you get an unwanted rooster, you can usually find a home on Craigslist, or if you REALLY want to go back to basics, you can have him for dinner, and at least you know exactly what your dinner had eaten for dinner (like those Foster Farms commercials!).  A lot of people nowdays wouldn't be able to eat their rooster for dinner, but they did it all the time only 40 years ago.  Luckily, the zoning at my house allows the rooster, but if we lived only a mile down the road, we'd have to get rid of him!  So, Fluffy stays... for now!

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