Grown-up chickens

I thought I'd give an update on the chickens now that they're nearly grown up and their situation has settled down. Our final count after coyote attacks is five birds. Our rooster, Charlie Murphy, is turning into a very handsome fellow. He's noticeably bigger than the hens and has a nice greenish sheen to his feathers. He tends to favor the two hens of his own breed, Henrietta and Helena Bonham Carter. Henrietta was the one who hurt her foot a couple months back, but she seems healthy and happy now. Then we have small, spry Junebug, who's too nervous to hold still for a photo, and plump Marjorie Stuart Baxter. We check regularly for eggs, because the hens are now 5 months old and should start laying any day now, but so far no luck.

Charlie Murphy, crowing proudly -- much to our annoyance

The more unpleasant development that comes with chicken maturity is that Charlie has turned into a serious crower. What was at first charming has become incredibly annoying, because he starts every day with 20 minutes or more of repeated crowing. Usually that starts around 6:30 or 7, but he's clocked in before 6 a.m. a couple times. Then any time he hears people outside or we come near, he crows 10 or 15 times. And he can be counted on to give another half dozen crows at random throughout the day. The noise is really loud (and obnoxious), and our neighbors might be starting to hate us. I don't have any friendly feelings myself when I'm hoping to sleep til 8 on Saturday morning and he wakes me up before dawn.

Marjorie the hen

The crowing isn't the only strike against Charlie Murphy. He's proved himself worthless at keeping squirrels out of the pen and coop (they squeeze right through the chain link), so we've had a parade of rodents chowing down on chicken feed. He's starting to show signs of being aggressive towards people when we go in their enclosure, which is unwelcome now but will become dangerous when his spurs grow in. And we don't need him to protect the hens anymore since they aren't really free-range now and are well protected by their pen. The only purpose he serves for us at this point will be fertilizing eggs in case we want to hatch more chicks next spring. But Mike's mom has offered us a nice gentle rooster who never crows who could serve the same purpose, so Charlie is on thin ice with us. If he keeps up his current behavior, we'll be offering a free rooster on Craigslist to whoever wants him. Kind of funny how a month of bad behavior can totally negate all the affection I had for a bird we raised from a cute little chick.