But you get a Roo too!

So It’s May 30th and the kids and I are SO excited to go and pick up our chicks! I pick my daughter up from daycare early and we head over, we get the chicks and bring them home, they are SO tiny and SO adorable, with their fluffiness and teeny little chirps! When we got there the chicks were in this little box, and one of my orders was a random brown-colored egg layer. I just said to the woman working, “You choose – I don’t mind!“, so she picked out this beautiful little brown/cream/white chick – such a beautiful little mix in a chick. She mentioned she loved it’s coloring and she was right – a beautiful little chick it was!

Before I knew we were getting chicks, I had read on another blog of a woman getting a small rabbit cage to keep them in before they are big enough to go into their coop (which I also pre-purchased). [For more information on what you need to get started, check out my other blog post here] Anyways, as time goes by these chicks all get attached to us, as well as one another. The weeks pass and all of the sudden we noticed one of them is just a little bigger than the rest. We didn’t pay it any mind, since we got quite an assortment of breeds.

So about 2 weeks ago when they are about 5 weeks old, I am watching this little chick that the employee picked out grown bigger and start to turn white! It was crazy how much this little chick was growing up! So I wake up at my usual 6:00AM, and let them out of their coop, and out of the barn. Then “Honey” as we named her, starts being violent and pecking another hen, this was new and unusual – but chickens will do this to assert dominance. So, once again, I didn’t give it much thought.

As time continued, so did the pecking of other hens, Honey was still being very dominant. Then I noticed a bit of red growing from her beak. I started to wonder “What IF Honey… is dare I say it? A Rooster?!” I watched closely the last week or so and noticed how Honey really stood out from the rest of the flock.

Then one morning, again it’s 6:00AM as I start my chores, I let them out again, top up their food, give them fresh water. Then all I hear is “HUUUU-ERRRRRRRRR” I turned around and saw Honey there, on our fence, as high as “she” could get, Cock-a-doodle-do-ing!

I came inside and told my husband, “looks like we got a rooster on our hands“. I told him everything I had just seen (my husband grew up on a cattle farm, and they also had chickens as well – so he is well-aware of the ins and outs of chickens) and sure enough – we have a Rooster. It’s safe to say he went from “Honey” to “Howard” that day. He is still here, living his best life with the ladies as we wait this chapter out on what our next steps will be, now having a “Roo” in our Henhouse.

Needless to say…maybe I should have picked out that last chick…