A Confused Chicken

Let me tell you first of all that this is the longest post I have ever done. I apologize up front for the length, but I couldn't leave anything out.  If you want to skip some, I don't blame you, but it was so fun to write about it...

Most of you know that we have chickens and have had them for almost a year now.  Can I just tell you that we are throughly enjoying them?  Yes, I know people think they are smelly and nasty or whatever adjectives you can think of, but we really like them.  We enjoy watching them do all of their chicken activities.  (well, mostly all of them)  They really are fun to watch.  Maybe that's because we lead a boring life, but I don't think so.

Since it is so cold outside, we are only getting a couple of eggs a day, but we are anticipating lots of farm fresh eggs come spring.  We can't wait for that.

Now to get to the confused chicken part.  Do you remember the hen we have that got bitten by a dog?  Her name is Oreo and she is crippled.  She survived the brutal attack and became one of our favorites.  Bless her heart, she walks around with a terrible limp, but she has persevered.

Ok, now I am going to get to my point with as little confusion as possible.  Ok...remember that Oreo is a hen.  And, we were told that she was an easter egg chicken, which meant she layed colored eggs.  So, when we began to get green eggs everyday, we were thrilled that Oreo was laying that golden (green) egg for us.  Excitement, people, I mean excitement.  Sweet little crippled Oreo was laying our green egg.  Can you say proud parents???

Fast forward a little...About a week ago, Beth walks in the house screaming that Oreo was crowing.  Did you hear me?  Oreo, our green egg laying hen, was crowing.  But hens are not supposed to crow, right?  Well,  this hen was crowing.  Or was she really a hen?  Oh my goodness...a hen or a rooster.  What was she/he?

At this point we start to think back about her lifestyle.  (hmm...know what I mean)  Was she/he the one being attacked or was she/he the attacker, because, frankly, that's what it looks like.  FULL BLOWN ATTACK!!  We couldn't really remember, but we think she/he usually was the one being chased by the roosters not doing the chasing.

Ok, now we are really confused.  An egg laying, cock a doodle dooing hen/rooster.  What to do...

We decided to separate Oreo and three other roosters from the other chickens just to see what happened.  We had to find the source of the green egg.  So if Oreo was separate from the others, maybe we could get some answers.  We waited and we watched and we listened.  Yes, Oreo continued to crow, loud rooster crows.  But, wait a minute...there is more.  (are you dying here or bored to death)

Yesterday, Donnie goes out to where Oreo and the other roosters are and guess what he finds.  Nope, not a green egg.  He found a brown egg.  WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?  But, there it was in all it's brown, not green, glory.  But the evidence of egg laying was there obviously.  Oreo had layed an egg.  No, she is not the green egg layer, but she does lay eggs and evidently she is a girl.  A hen, I'm telling you, a hen.  Do you know what that means?  MY EGG LAYING HEN...SHE CROWS!!!  I have a crowing hen.

For some of you who don't realize what that means...most hens DO NOT crow.  Usually only roosters crow.  Is that not crazy? 

I googled crowing hens and it said that hens do not crow except in very RARE instances when there is no rooster around or they are a dominant hen.  Neither case here. (at least we didn't think she would be a dominant hen)

So there you have it, we have a very confused hen.  She doesn't know whether she wants to be a boy or a girl, so she will be both.  People, there is something very wrong with that.  I mean wrong.  She has to be one or the other. 

Are you wondering about the green egg?  Who lays that egg?  We still don't know, but it is being investigated.  Our guess is that it is our lovely, lovable Murr, which, by the way, is my favorite chicken.

I know you are all wanting to see Oreo in all her confused glory, so here she is...

Isn't she a pretty thing?  See her standing on one leg.

I know you all want to know when we find out the source of the green egg, and I will happily tell you.  I will also let you know if we have any more strange chicken happenings on the Kinser Hobby Farm.