Every evening (and mornings too) the City Chicks do a little foraging in the yard. One night, I grabbed the camera to have a City Chicks photo shoot of the girls. Or at least, I thought they were all girls.
Until we heard a crow.
Yep, we had a rooster.
So after a few mornings of early trips to the chicken coop in the rain as we tried to determine who the rooster was since he would have to relocate to the country, we discovered that it was my beloved Big Girl…er, Big Boy.
Now, don’t laugh too hard at me when you see that he has a beautiful comb like a rooster. Remember, I’m a chicken newbie! ~smile~
I love Big Girl…er, Big Boy so much because he was my chicken. Actually, he is the one I took under my wing because he was different. He was kind of left out and pecked on by some of the girls. So I would pet him and talk sweet to him. He would come and sit at my feet if I were out in the garden. We had a special relationship. I could overlook the fact that he was twice the size of the other girls because he was bred to be a meat chicken. I even could overlook the fact that he was extra work for me. I didn’t mind at all.
But he crowed and we city dwellers can’t have roosters so we made a trip out to the house of some of our country-living friends and Big Boy is now the rooster of a large flock of country-living chickens.
The morning after we dropped Big Boy off at his new home, I followed my morning routine. I opened the blinds to look out at the garden and I heard a rooster crow. I walked away thinking, “Oh, that was a rooster crowing”. And then it hit me…that was a rooster crowing!
We had yet another rooster!
We then found out that our little silkie, the smallest of our chickens, was also a rooster! This was Emma’s chicken and she was a little sad that her chicken was also leaving our flock to become a country chick. (She became a little happier knowing that she gets to pick out a new chick next year though.) So our Baylee or Mo (short for Mozart due to the “hair”) as I called him went out to the country to join Big Boy with the country chicks.
Now our flock of six city chicks is down to only four…and I’m pretty sure that they are all hens. (fingers crossed)
Let me introduce you to:
Pecky Sue
Super Chick (or as I call her…Bitey)
Tundra
and
Scratchy
They love to dig in the yard waste pile for bugs and eat my baby okra plants. ~smile~ They also love corn on the cob, watermelon rinds, and plain yogurt. We look forward to hopefully getting some eggs from our city chicks within the next 10 or so weeks.
That's the thing with chickens - you just. don't. know for a while! This post is making me seriously miss our ladies. The barred rock at the bottom is lovely! Love it!! (and your header is awesome!!!)
ReplyDeleteI'm diggin' your chickens'.
ReplyDeleteI love all this city talk with country chickens
And...
did I tell you how much I LOVE your new header?!!!
I do!
Too bad about the two roosters. Fingers crossed the others aren't LOL. I can't wait to hear if you guys start getting eggs. That would be awesome, I'm totally jealous. Our city won't let us have chickens! BOO on them! Have been meaning to ask you (or maybe I have and forgot) do you guys have any problems with squash bugs there?
ReplyDeleteThank you. When we dropped our Big Boy off in the country the other night, he joined a bunch of barred rocks. They were really very pretty with their red combs. Can't wait until Scratchy gets her red comb too.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Amanda. I was afraid the header was going to be too busy. I had a hard time picking from all of the pictures so I just used them all! :)
ReplyDeleteIt is fun doing the city chicks and country chicks thing. :)
Technically, our city is a little iffy on the city chickens. Some say "no chickens" and some say "chickens are ok if your neighbors don't complain". That's why the roosters had to go. So far our neighbors who know are ok with it.
ReplyDeleteI can not grow squash here. We have serious issues with squash borer worms. I even tried Sevin dust this year (I don't usually use pesticides) but it was old and I still have no squash. I have plants with blooms and little squashes that die before I can pick them. I just read a post about covering the squash with a netting but you have to hand pollinate the plants to get squash. I might give it a try or I might just buy my squash from the farmer's market or store. I really wanted some zucchini for zucchini bread too!
Same thing here, I just cannot get it to grow. The plants look great but no squash and then I get those yucky white borers in the main stalk. I talked to a farmer at our market about it and he said it is worse in the cities in the south. He lives outside our city limits and grows it with no problem. Stinkin' bugs!
ReplyDelete