One of our juvenile hens has started crowing every morning. It's an adolescent crow--the poor gal's voice usually cracks halfway through its wake-up call. But of course, if one of our "hens" is crowing, the detective in me says that something is amiss.
I think the hatchery we got our chicks from has a 95% success rate in identifying and sending hens (and weeding out the roosters). But we also have one bantam chick from a friend that is straight run, which means that the hatchery just sent whatever chick hatched and didn't try to separate hens from roosters.
Will the true man please stand up?
We finally figured it out yesterday. The fact that it is 50% larger than any of the hens should have clued us in, or its large feet (read: talons), or its bright red comb, but what clinched the deal was that we actually caught one of our white rocks crowing.
Now the decision is: do we want chicken dinner or a rooster to protect the flock (and make baby chicks)?
