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“You never know, until they crow…”

It seems like the more Angela and I get into “Prepping,” “Homesteading,” “Self Sufficiency” (or whatever you want to call it), the more we discover how much we really don’t know. But, we keep plugging away at it. All of this is a learning curve and I don’t think anyone can ever learn it all without having been born into it. After all, our grandparents lived this way every day of their early lives. Back then, it was just called “growing up on the farm.”

As you know if you’ve been a regular reader, last year, we acquired six chickens and a rooster. Three months ago, we hatched seven chicks to replace chickens that had been killed by predators. (Three hens and the rooster.)

Brahma Chicken

We’ve been very eager to confirm whether any of the seven new birds is a rooster. Honestly, the whole idea behind incubating our own eggs was to get another rooster. Every hen we got from that deal would just be bonus eggs. Well, that, and now we have a really cool variety, including a Brahma hen (largest breed of chicken), and an Americana hen (beautiful colors and spotted feathers).

As we were waiting for the eggs to hatch back in June, we studied up on how to tell if the baby chicks in a brood were male or female.

For some breeds, you can tell by feather patterns. That’s SOME breeds. Some sources say you can tell in the speed of development in combs and wattles. Apparently, males develop theirs a little sooner than females. Hmmmm. All our birds still look pretty much the same in that respect.

Within the same breed, I’ve read that roosters put on weight faster than hens do. Unfortunately, all our birds are NOT the same breed and the birds’ size is quite varied. Another publication told us that you can spread out the chicks’ wings, and note a difference in the length of the flight feathers. Females have all the same length and males have two different lengths … or was it vice versa? Well, we tried, but that went nowhere fast either.

Then there’s the method that chicken “sexing”’ experts use, which involves turning chicks upside down, and closely observing their butts. However, this method is only about 89% accurate when used by an experienced chicken-butt expert and, after my earlier horrifying experience involving a chicken’s butt, I quickly decided to pass on that method. (I still have nightmares…)

Well, as it would seem, Mother Nature has taken her course, and patience on our part has paid off.

Angela and I were sitting on the back porch Wednesday morning and, from the chicken yard, we heard a rather weak attempt by a very young rooster at a crow. It was more like a “Yak-Doo-Dooo!!” But, it was definitely something different than we’ve heard from those birds for the last three months. We both stopped talking immediately, and looked at each other for about five seconds, wide eyed, and wondering if the other one heard it. We both simultaneously said, “We’ve got a rooster!”

And, now the challenge is figuring out which ONE made that call. The chicken yard has ten birds in it. We already recognize the three adult hens. The seven youngsters are still growing, and I haven’t pulled out my comb and wattle measuring guage yet. So, it’s still a mystery – “Who’s the Rooster?”

As time marches on, and the birds keep growing, we will eventually know for sure. But, for now, we’re having fun guessing and hoping about which one it may be.

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Brian Whiddon is the Managing Editor of WritersWeekly.com and the Operations Manager at BookLocker.com. An Army vet and former police officer, Brian is the author of Blue Lives Matter: The Heart behind the Badge. He's an avid sailor, having lived and worked aboard his 36-foot sailboat, the “Floggin’ Molly” for 9 years after finding her abandoned in a boat yard and re-building her himself. Now, in northern Georgia, when not working on WritersWeekly and BookLocker, he divides his off-time between hiking, hunting, and farming.

 

 

 

 

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