morning zoo

We've now got 50+ chickens. This is good because we are starting to know what we are doing and it's not really any more work to take care of 50 vs 20. Our flock includes four of our 2009 golden girls (golden comet hens), some of our 2010 rhode island red (RIR) hens, a RIR rooster named Opie, twenty some RIR's that we got a few months ago (including several roosters), and a new batch of 14 RIR hens and 6 barred rock (or plymouth rock) hens that arrived last weekend.

The batch of twenty some RIRs that we got a few months ago have grown out well and are looking very nice. The only problem is that there are several roosters in that group and they are now starting to act like roosters. In the morning when one rooster crows that starts the other roosters and they take turns crowing. At this point only Opie has a really good rooster crow, some of the others sound rather pitiful. At least one of the roosters sounds like an elephant when he tries to crow. So in the morning right now it sounds a little bit like a zoo. The rooster contingent will be reduced shortly.