I ordered 20 female chicks when we decided to get layer chickens, for obvious reasons. As day olds, the hatchery will sex them, and they have a 98% accuracy rating, or something like that.
As fate would have it, I started to question my decision to not get any unsexed, and therefore have the chance of getting a boy.
“It may be nice to have a rooster,” I thought. “He’d protect the girls, and bonus, we could maybe hatch out some eggs!”
Once they were a couple weeks old, the ones who looked obviously different from each other were all settled into their given names.
We had Annie, Dorthy & Maria – a tribute to my favorite childhood movies, all musicals. Then we had Betty White (which I later named Galinda), Elphaba, Maureen & Eponine – who were all tributes to my favorite stage musical characters.
Dustin had fun naming a few girls: Beatrice, Henrietta and Francine.
Arlo named his favorites: SarahDuck, Tiny & Shiny – after some of his favorite kids shows. And he helped me name the two orange ones with darker red stripes down their back: Clementine & Marigold.
The 5 remaining chipmunk girls wouldn’t get their official names until we could better distinguish between them.
We enjoyed our little girls and loved to watch them grow, dreaming of the eggs they would all one day gift us. And then one day we realized something odd…. Marigold was becoming a cockerel.
Marigold was our sweetest chick. She had always been the easiest to hold and pet, and one day while I held her in my hands and gently stroked her head, she closed her eyes and I swear she started to purr.
But as the chicks grew, it became very obvious Marigold was not going to be laying any eggs for us. By 3 months old, her comb was MUCH bigger than all of her sisters… combined.
So after watching her closely for a few weeks, we succumb to the fact that Marigold was actually a he.
Now, I’ve read up on roosters and I’ve heard all the stories. I’ve heard the tales of the rooster that scares everyone and gets put “in the freezer” because they attacked a child.
So while I’m a little sad our sweet hen has now shown us he’s going to grow into a large, spur wielding rooster… I’m also a little hopeful.
Because of all the 20 we have, if I had to pick the temperament of the one I’d choose to become our first rooster, it would be our sweet baby Marigold.