This was a chicken I had as a kid.

[fledgling]

This was Beaker (named after a muppet). I was 13 and my best friend and I found him next to a homemade incubator at the ranch where we cleaned stalls. He was the first chick born and all alone so he wriggled out from under the burlap sack covering his incubator. I heard him cheeping and picked him up. I did not know what I had done until our boss laughed at me being followed by the baby chick. He told me that I had to take him home. My dad and I put together a warming box and bought him feed etc... It was summer so he was constantly played with even though he was all alone. I stayed with my dad every summer and returned to my mom's house every fall.

I call him a "he" but I don't know if we ever figured out for certain. He only lived to be 4 months old. My dad called me that fall and told me that a raccoon had broken into the chicken coop we had so carefully constructed. I cried for a week. He was a cherished pet. I went through a vegetarian phase after he was killed because some members of my family teased me about mourning the loss of a chicken. I was stubborn and kept avoiding meat for about 10 years.

So, can you guess what he was? What breed do you think? Rooster or hen? This picture was taken after I went back to my mom's house and my dad was caring for him. I think he was too thin in this picture but he was fat when I had cared for him over the summer.

Here's Beaker:

 

[redhen]

awww! nice story!

 

[fledgling]

Fast forward about three years....

I was picking up hay at our local feed store and saw a small wire cage on the ground with very stressed out 6 week old chicks and the feed store dog was chasing them from one side of the little cage to the other. No one seemed concerned but I was infuriated. A little of the raw pain from my family's callousness after Beaker's death came back. Just because they were "only chickens" didn't mean they should be treated like they weren't worth anything. I paid a dollar for one of the chicks. I picked the one that held his head highest because he seemed to be pleading for help. They told me he was a Bantam.

He lived at the barn where I boarded my horse and was quite tame. He came when called and sat on my shoulder while I did my chores. He also harassed the barn kitty quite regularly. A friend rescued a feral hen and her new chicks and we put them all together in a coop.

Poor Poco gave his life defending Blackberry (the hen) one night after an animal tore the roof off of their coop. Blackberry and the chicks survived and went to a neighbor with a much stronger coop.

So, was he a Bantam?

Here's Poco Rojo:

 

[Patchesnposies]

I am guessing (totally!) at this, but this looks like it could be a Leghorn cross or California white because of the black feathers and the legs are yellow, too.

I think it looks like a roo.

 

[fledgling]

California White? Hehehe! Actually, I lived in Northern California at the time....