Whatto! Chicken sexers.....
You may remember that earlier in the year we were gracious enough to offer accomodation to several delightful chickens here at Virtual Manor.
And that we had a rude awakening when 'Korma' - one of our beautiful 'girls' - turned out to be a 'Lady Boy'.....
.....and started crowing loudly each morning just as dawn broke.
Having just returned from a long stay in Thailand we were not disturbed by the whole sex-change thing.....
....and I happily exchanged 'her' for a female of the same Pilkie breed (Silkie / Polish cross) who is delightfully quiet......
....and named 'Satay'.
Peacefulness descended on Virtual Manor once more....
....and we were looking forward to the day when 'Supreme' (our youngest Polish chicken) would finally mature....
....and begin adding her eggs to those that her co-tenants 'Nuggets' and 'Satay' were already graciously providing us with.
Well......
....as time progressed.......
......things started happening to Supreme.....
She started off as a proper cutey who we couldn't resist.....
....but we noticed that she became increasingly more dominant.....
....and then her extravagant head feathers became even more straggly....
....and THEN........
.....her whole body shape altered!
Obviously we were concerned....
.....(even taking into account that most maturing females become totally mishapen).....
....and then we saw that her eye colouring had changed from green.....
.....to ORANGE!
I believe a common expression in such circumstances is "WTF?!"
It was such a sudden change that it was almost as if someone had swopped her for a completely different chicken!
But we knew that she hadn't been 'got at' because they all live in an enclosed courtyard.
So when we were again woken at dawn by the familiar sound of a small bird screaming its head off in their natural and instinctive manner......
....we realised the brutal truth once more!
I rang the friendly suppliers of the said bird and they were most apologetic.....
....offering to swop it for a female asap.
I jumped at the chance to return to having nice lie-ins....
....and after several hilarious minutes.....
......('hilarious' for Lady Jacqueline who was watching from the safety and warmth of the Manor as I ran about the courtyard in the rain trying to persuade an extremely confused, reluctant and bedraggled chicken to climb into a small box that I was carrying).......
.....Supreme finally gave up......
....she was obviously totally convinced that I was a complete lunatic who just would not go away!
She was right.
The second such exchange was made......
....with the lovely suppliers apologising profusely for managing to get wrong the sex of the birds twice out of three times!
I told them that I wouldn't be putting them forward for the Chicken Sexers job which is currently advertised at a nearby farm......
....and they laughed....
....and I developed a new admiration for chicken sexers everywhere.
I took home our newest acquisition and introduced the beautiful and clearly female (so far) Miss 'Kiev' to our other two girls.....
....She was understandably hesitant at first.....
....and now the pecking order will have to be sorted out amongst them.....
....but we are finally in the position we wanted to be at the start of this whole adventure....
....having seen several cocks come and go in the process.....
...much like many of you no doubt.
Tallyho!
Have you suffered from Cock trouble?
Best Wishes - Lord Noel & Lady Jacqueline
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