A Rooster called Baby

When we had chickens, we had several hens who still had the brooding urge (unlike our bred up Leghorns and Hybrid Sex-link brown eggers).  

When I was little, we had a hen, Heather, who faithfully set twice a year, for several seasons, and was brood mother to most of the flock we kept.  

Amongst our new setters, we had a nice brown hen who chose to set twice the one year, so we dubbed her Heather II.  One of the settings she produced a magnificent hatch - one little yellow fluff-ball.  But she was a proud of him, as if she had hatched a dozen.  Unfortunately, he was a bit of a mongrel -- probably an egg off one of the hybrid sex-link brown hens and out of my Barred Rock rooster, judging by the few black checkers he developed in his otherwise blond waistcoat.

Baby, as he became know, was blessed with personality.  He was extremely outgoing and gregarious, it probably had something to do with his single child status.  You had only to walk into the coop and he would almost immediately make his way onto your shoulder for a visit.  My wife was especially fond of Baby as you can see from the photos below.
 

         The house rooster.

Alas, puberty struck, and Baby soon lost a lot of interest in being a human, and turned to the ways of his forefathers, strutting, preening and chasing the chicks. As I already had three purebred roosters there wasn't any need to have a fourth mongrel among the stock. We couldn't turn Baby into Sunday dinner, but fortunately a friend offered to take him to patriarch his flock. Unfortunately Baby was not long for this world. A fox got into the yard, and Baby died gallantly defending his ladies. So he really was a gentleman to the end.

I just love Mom.

And that is about all I have to say for today.

Musings and meanderings from the Musical Gardener.

And a quick smooch for Mom too.