The Chicken Chronicles – The Surprise

Other posts in this series:

• The Beginning
• The Surprise (this post)
• The New Kids on the Block
• The Eviction
• Thelma and Louise’s Last Adventure
• Making New Friends
• The Pretty Birds Join the Brood
• The Attack
• Kidnapped!
• A New Home

So, I told you about buying our seven Rhode Island Red chicks out of the “straight run” bin.  We didn’t know what that meant, but as time went on, some of the chicks began to look different from the others.  Five seemed to be taking on different characteristics than the other two.  We had bought the chicks so they would produce eggs for us, so naturally, we wanted hens.

Surprise!  We didn’t have seven pullets…

We’d already realized our folly with the “straight run” choice.  That simply means the chicks aren’t sorted by gender.  Since we wanted layers, we should have bought birds out of the “pullets” bin instead.

Being novices in chicken rearing, we didn’t know if the five were roosters or hens for what seemed like a long time.  We looked on the internet.  We asked people we knew.  We tried to figure out what to do since roosters are not allowed inside the city limits.

We had five cockerels (that would grow to be roosters) and two pullets (that would grow to be hens).  Our chicks continued to grow up together, enjoying the freedom of the yard by day and the safety of their house at night.  They were unaware of the discrimination that was coming…

Stay tuned…

~Dana 

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