Yesterday morning my Nephew and youngest Grandson accompanied me to the chicken houses to let the chickens out. They both had stayed overnight and wanted to give the birds a good morning treat. My Grandson was telling me that he saw the Banty rooster in the first hen house. He told me that he saw it had grown up to be really big. I just smiled at him, thought he was pulling my leg. Out marched all the girls. The little white, blue legged one first, the next white one, then the Muscovey ducks and drakes, then other chickens and then....out marched Antonio. I almost flipped my lid. Antonio is the big Rhode Island Red that generally sleeps with the other big white rooster, Roquefort, with the older group of hens that we originally had, in the other coop.
A couple of days ago we had opened up the gate between the two chickenyards and allowed all the original chickens, the chickens which we purchased a couple of months ago and the Muscovey drakes and ducks to mingle and get to know each other. Roquefort and Antonio were in their glory with a whole new set of beautiful ladies, with which to pass some time. There was no dissention among this crowd, they melded like they were the best of old friends.
So, when the night time had come, Antonio must have took it into his bird brain that he was going to take over the girls in this chicken yard. They didn't have a rooster to guide and look after them, and he thought he was the perfect dude. And so he is.
In this particular chickenyard I speak of we have the Araucana, 4 Plymouth Barred Rocks, 8 brown sexlinks, 1 golden chicken, the white gal with the blue legs, (oh no, my Sister has actually burst my bubble with this one, she thinks that the blue legged girl is a rooster, eeeks!!! and I have already named her Lucy), and the fluffy white one, probably a White Leghorn I guess (along with the Muscoveys). We have added 8 more brown hens to that yard that were offspring from our original brown sexlink chickens, they are about 8 weeks old now and should be laying soon. They had been in a separate area near the rabbits until they grew up enough to be put together. So, Antonio will have a lovely group of girls to look after, he is happy, that is clear as clear can be.
Antonio (the red) rarely ever crowed that I could see. He was rather silent. But now that he is hanging out with his girls, he seems to be crowing alot and I have seen him so frequently, in the small time even that he has been with these ladies. It is cool.
Ooops, so where was I. Right, my Grandson. He had thought that Antonio was the little Banty rooster (they looked kind of the same, that beautiful red, but the Banty is more colourful and has that rose comb, with a fluffy thick cape). He thought that was kind of funny when I told him that it wasn't actually the Banty rooster, but it was the big ol' Antonio that had been living over with Roquefort.
Don't children always bring that smile to our face, gotta love these little dudes that will grow up to get great and wonderful big dudes. Have a fantastic day, Cindi