An Innocent Beginning
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| PeeWee at 2 weeks of age with no tail but ready to hang with the big girls. |
It's just a fact that when eggs hatch, there is a 50% chance there will be a hen and a 50% chance there will be a rooster. When we first wanted to started our backyard flock I asked for female Rhode Island Red chicks. We got 9 and they all kind of looked alike except for PeeWee. They also gave us two Rhode Island Whites just cause. PeeWee had no tail and was the smallest of all of them. So "she" was named by his godmother, Carmen, a co-worker that had a chicken named PeeWee when she was young. Well maybe it was because PeeWee had a story already given by his godmother or maybe it was just all personality but we fell in love with PeeWee.
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| Daddy's girl, until we found out she was a he. |
This little chick always felt comfortable with us and would hobble over to us and would try to fly into our arms when "she" was older. But after a couple of months "she" started to look different than the other chicks. There was a disturbingly big comb and waddles that the others didn't have. After a while we had to admit that PeeWee was a boy. Now this is a big problem as we live in Long Beach and they don't allow "crowing fowl". I'm not sure how this is technically possible as half of the chicks born will be roosters. But we love him and he loves us. I can't explain the way he follows us and comes when we call his name. The dogs do it too but it's not the same funny interest that PeeWee has. Now one of our neighbors has called animal control, we think the ones across the street that have a problem with us just being alive, and we have to remove PeeWee. But there is a hard fact that because sexing of chickens isn't perfect so there are a lot roosters that need homes and all the farm sanctuaries are filled. I called one woman today and she said that she had 18(!!) roosters that she was trying to find homes for. What are we supposed to do? Kill him? Give him to someone who will kill him? There aren't a lot of good options.
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| A big boy now and hard to deny he's a rooster. |
PeeWee's Morning Routine
He'll sleep outside in the coop until 5am when I bring him inside. I give him a little food and he clucks away very happily. He follows me around while I give the rabbits their morning grass and water. I water some plants, etc, etc and he just follows me making sure that I'm always in sight. Before I go to work I put him in a padded crate so that his morning crows are muffled. I've been outside before when he's crowing and you don't hear anything which I'm glad about since I don't want to disturb the neighbors. It might be different in other parts of the world like Los Angeles where you can have a rooster and even more than one with a permit. I spoke to someone who's neighbor had a rooster and he said that it reminded him of home and was comforting.Joachin works late so he let's PeeWee out of the crate. And he comes storming out with only the thought of picking a fight with the rooster that lives in the mirror of our bedroom. He thinks he wins the fight every day and prances away after some pecks at the mirror looking pretty full of himself.
Before Joachin leaves for work, he puts him out with his girlfriends where he happily spends the day.
