Rudi Is Gone And Ginger Is A Rooster

Yesterday was a very interesting, yet also very sad day.

About 4 months ago, we set up a chicken coop and run in our yard. Over a period of several weeks, I tried to collect specific types of chickens. At two different feed stores, I had my name down for Americaunas and gold wyandottes.

All of the chickens I would get would have to be pullets, which means they would have to be females. Some people at the hatcheries where these chickens are hatched, are skilled in determining if a chicken is a female or male. But, there is a little bit of room for error.

The first three 'pullets' I got were a Rhode Island Red and two barred rocks. The Rhode Island Red was named 'Ginger'.

This is a picture of me holding 'Ginger'

The chickens were only a couple of days old when I got them. Ginger loved to come out of the tub. She was very selfish and would try to be first. 

Two weeks later, I got five more chickens. One was a New Hampshire Red, another was a black sex link. Then I got two Americaunas and one gold wyandotte. Hopefully, all these chickens would be pullets. But there is about an 8% chance that you could end up with a rooster.

Ginger seemed to be developing much faster than the other chickens were. She probably was the oldest, so I gave her some room for that. 

About two months later, Ginger had a nice red comb on the top of her head. Not too long after that, she started getting wattles, I think they are called. 

Around this time, a rooster ended up in our yard. After a couple of weeks of this rooster being here, we found out that someone had dumped him into the neighbor's yard, and their roosters chased him into our yard. He never left our yard, so we adopted him. We named him 'Rudi'.

We liked Rudi a lot because he was good protection from the hawks. As the girls got older, and used to their coop and run, we let them play outside more. Rudi didn't have a house to stay in though. He stayed in the bushes. Then he started roosting on the barn fence at night.

Yesterday morning Rudi never came for his morning feeding. I went out to look for him and found him. It was terrible. At first, I didn't recognize him. It looked like someone deflated him. I could tell it was him because the feet were sticking up. 

I am pretty sure a raccoon got him either early Sunday evening or Monday morning. It was very sad.

As my husband was burying him, the neighbor's peacocks came over and watched. It was like having a memorial service for him. He will be greatly missed, not only by us, but also by his peacock friends next door.

Meanwhile, as each day goes by, we are more and more convinced that Ginger really is a rooster. Yesterday, the final decision for that came about. 

As I let the chickens out to play, well, I noticed Ginger, let's say, he is now sexually mature and actively looking for a female chicken to be his partner. In this case, his selected partner was one of the barred rocks. He tried a couple of different times today, with the barred. 

We know now that Ginger is really a rooster. Or something is severely wrong with him. 

Ginger will be good at replacing Rudi for helping protect the girls from the hawks. We also have the peacocks to help as well as the neighbor's turkeys. 

I will keep the name 'Ginger' on him though. But that means we will get less eggs for the next six years. Glad I didn't count my chickens before they hatched!