Dolly the Rooster!

We bought our baby chicks and ducks from a small time breeder, so that we would not have to worry about getting roosters, you see the breeder is suppose to sex them and sell only females if that's what you ordered. That was the main reason why we paid more for the birds. It became evident early on that one of our Rhode Island reds was outgrowing the other chicks. Not to worry, we thought, maybe she will be a giant chicken. As the weeks went by, Lucy kept getting bigger and her feathers more colorful, she was clumsy, her feet hardly able to support her giant upper body, it was amazing to watch her navigate her way down the ramp from the coop, more often than not kind of stumbling down.


Then it happened, one morning, a hoarse call at sunrise. It reminded me of the scene in Phantom of the Opera when the phantom taunts with the leading soprano, taking her voice so that she just croaks like a toad. In addition to this revelation that Lucy was obviously a rooster, he tried mounting anything around with feathers. David was horrified when Giant Lucy plopped himself on top of Diana and Josephine (our ducks) and flattened them. It was evident that his days with us were numbered. A few days later Lucy took up residence at a nearby chicken farm that housed about 300 chickens. In return David could pick out a chicken from the flock. He came home with a white pullet, and we named her Dolly.

Dolly kept to herself the first few days, she was checked out and pecked at every now and then by the other birds, kind of letting her know where she ranked we guessed.

Then one afternoon I noticed something white floating in our make shift duck pond. Since our ducks are mostly white, I assumed it was one of them. But i grew somewhat anxious when I didn’t notice any movement. Ii decided to walk over and investigate and as I approached I realized Dolly had fallen into the pond. There she was floating with her eyes closed! I frantically yanked her out of the water, huddling her against my chest I ran into the house yelling for David to get towels. We bundled her in towels and took her outside into the warm sunlight to help her get dry. She looked exhausted and near death. David started giving her mouth to beak resuscitation (I kid you not) which actually seemed to work, because she was showing signs of life. Meanwhile I tried to find a hairdryer, without any luck. We decided to take her into the laundry room and place her in front of the dryer allowing the hot air to dry her feathers. A few hours later we had a saved chicken!

We placed her back in the coop and hoped she would fully recover after a good nights sleep. We wondered if perhaps the other birds convinced her to come over to the pond to get a drink of water and then nonchalantly pushed her in. She was after all new to the flock, maybe it was a form of hazing....

Dolly recovered fully and stayed clear of any unattended puddles or ponds!

A few months later, Nancy at the Post Office asked me one morning if I was missing one of our chickens. Apparently there was a white chicken at the Ever May, an abandoned hotel up the road. I told David about it and he and Janet who was visiting with her husband decided to investigate. Upon my return from work they told me that yes indeed there was a white chicken and friendly too. So he and I went back to get her. As David enticed her with food I snuck up behind her and grabbed her. Yes, I think I am becoming a chicken whisperer. Looking closely at the bird in my arms, I had a sneaky suspicion we had a rooster on our hands. This would explain its unfortunate abandonment. Roosters are not very popular, and are often killed or left at vacant properties. We weren't entirely sure, or just in denial. We placed the new bird into our coop, while the other birds were roaming around, Dolly bolted up to us to see what was going on, so we decided to put her with the new bird. Unfortunately that was a bad idea, as both birds started fighting intensely. We quickly intervened, and took the new bird out and placed her in the dog pen (a sort of holding area for rowdy animals). About 5 minutes elapsed and we heard...cockadoodle doo!

Here we go again!

The next day we packed up the new rooster and drove to the farm that had taken Lucy. Unfortunately they did not want him, and they also informed us that Lucy had mysteriously died. I'm still suspicious about that mystery. I think they made soup out of him. David believes he died of a massive heart attack, due to his rapid growth.

Luckily there was another farm up the road who gladly took the rooster off our hands. Mission Accomplished! We had rid ourselves of 2 pesky roosters. Harmony was again restored within our flock, our so we thought!

About a month ago while David and I were having coffee, David asked "Did you hear that?" "What?" I asked, "I just heard a rooster" he replied. "Can't be!" "That's got to be somewhere in the distance" I stated. I walked outside looked at our flock, who where contently pecking at the ground, except for Dolly, who stood tall and proud, she looked at me puffed up its feathers and said "cockadoodle doo" I just burst out laughing, and stood there in disbelief, out of 300 chickens David picked a rooster!