This morning, which was a beautiful morning, Jeff and I were sitting out on the back patio drinking coffee and reading the New York Times. I was knitting a sweater for the rapidly approaching fall weather. The afternoon would be spent nailing the roof onto our chicken coop, planting seeds for the fall garden, doing some yardwork. It would be a nice mellow day after a very busy Saturday. Then we heard a loud, never-heard-before sound coming from the chicken coop. We looked at each other, puzzled. Then we heard it again. And we said "oh no." It was a rooster crowing. One of our chickens was, we thought, a mature girl. Big because of her large breed. The thought that she was a rooster never crossed our minds. Until I went and looked at her again, with fresh eyes. That redder comb. Those wattles that the other girls didn't have. It wasn't looking good.
I went scampering indoors to look up photos of buff Brahma roosters and hens. My heart sunk a little. I came back outside to discuss my findings with Jeff. He advocated for a mutant transgendered chicken theory. The denial was running strong around here, people. LaFawnduh is hands down our favorite chicken. We were even willing to accept a non-egg laying mutant mascot chicken so long as it wasn't a rooster. Did I mention that this is our favorite chicken?
I called the farm store and the nice lady said to bring LaFawnduh in for a check. As soon as Kit woke up from her nap, we piled into the car with the chicken in a box and Kit delightedly saying "bawk bawk!!" and pointing at the chicken in her car. We drove along and said a fervent little wish that LaFawnduh wouldn't turn out to be Uncle Rico instead.
The owner of the store took one look at the chicken and the hopeful face of Annika and said "oh yeah. That's a rooster. I'm sorry."
Meet Uncle Rico. He has now gone to live at the farm of the nice owner of the farm store, where I'm sure he'll have a nice life chasing hens and eating bugs and roaming the acreage (for real - I'm not just telling my kids that). And we will miss him. So long Uncle Rico. It's been fun.
