Right now I have 2 batches of chicks I'm brooding in rabbit cages on a table in my screened-in patio. They're just a few feet away from the window over the kitchen sink so I can easily see and hear them. Yesterday I heard a sound coming from the cages that sounded like somebird was in distress, or being strangled. One cage has 15 1-week-old Cornish Cross chicks, the other has a mixed batch of chicks ranging in ages from 2-5.5 weeks old.
In that second cage is a little Dutch bantam boy. It's been evident that he was a he from about 3 weeks of age, his tiny comb began then to turn first a deep pink, then salmon, and now a decided red. His little wattles are beginning to show under his beak, looking like a teenaged boy whose beard whiskers are starting to sprout.
It turns out the squeaky-wheezy sound we were hearing were this little man-child's first attempts at crowing! We watched as he got up on the roost, stretched out his thin little neck, opened his beak and squeezed out a noise.
I know that he was trying to impress all the other chickies in his cage and the cage beyond. But we all couldn't help but laugh & laugh.
In that second cage is a little Dutch bantam boy. It's been evident that he was a he from about 3 weeks of age, his tiny comb began then to turn first a deep pink, then salmon, and now a decided red. His little wattles are beginning to show under his beak, looking like a teenaged boy whose beard whiskers are starting to sprout.
It turns out the squeaky-wheezy sound we were hearing were this little man-child's first attempts at crowing! We watched as he got up on the roost, stretched out his thin little neck, opened his beak and squeezed out a noise.
I know that he was trying to impress all the other chickies in his cage and the cage beyond. But we all couldn't help but laugh & laugh.
