Spring has sprung! I have three new babies who need names! Want to help me out? There are two Starlight Green Eggers (who look like quail) and one Prairie Bluebell Blue Egger (the tawny one). Give me your suggestions, and read on for some chicken trivia!
Who knew? Chickens have been domesticated for at least 8000 years, and are one of the closest living relatives to dinosaurs! Delicious when fried, chickens are also valued for their near-miraculous, prolonged egg-laying, use of eggs for embryology, DNA, and vaccine research, and in some circles, cockfighting. Don’t worry, ours are pets, living the high life, never to be cooked nor fought, and appreciated for their tinted eggs.
It’s funny, all the chicken vernacular that’s crept into the lexicon: to “chicken out,” the term “biddy” to refer to an elderly female, to “crow about” an accomplishment, “yardbird” for a free range bird down South, “pecking order” for social hierarchy, the infamous “cocky,” and the phrases “cock of the walk” and “chickens come home to roost.” A young female is a pullet, a mature one a hen (though an Aussie might use chook), and a castrated male is a capon.
Roosters can be viciously protective, their small brains preoccupied with sex. They spend their days crowing, mating, and looking out for predators, as well as luring the hens with tidbitting, in which they cluck while picking up and dropping a succulent worm or bug, to allow one of their harem to grab it, apparently a fair trade to the girls. Courtship involves wing dancing, in which a rooster circles closer and closer, drops one wing, and “strums” the feathers with one foot to produce a rattling sound.
Mating itself is fast: the hen performs a “submissive squat,” crouching and dropping her wings to steady her, and the rooster climbs onto her back, “treads” to get his balance right, and they press their nether regions together. We’re talking a matter of seconds here. Afterwards, the female shakes herself to realign her mussed feathers and strolls away, safe for at least a while.
It’s common for hens to crouch at the sight of a rooster to get it over with, and sometimes ours do this when we approach. What’s the etiquette for that?! Diss her and hurt her feelings by walking past? I’ve settled for a pat on the back and saying, “what a nice chicken you are.”
Got any names for me?
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