Well, let's get the bad news over with.
I'm sorry to announce that Sunshine has died. We are going to assume natural causes because she had no outward signs of trauma, no blood, when chickens see red on another bird, they can't help but peck, and in some cases "picked to death" is a real deal.
She was found Saturday morning yesterday the 14th of July. She was on her side stiff and cold.
Mr Almond, my dad and the morning hen releaser, (he opens their door before I get up in the morning) found her and took care of her.
Since sunshine was always a part of our flock, I have a few pics of her.
Here she is about 2 weeks old, yellow with her baby feathers. She was named sunshine because of her yellow feathers, Ava did not understand that she being a leghorn, she will grow up to be all white.
So fluffy, the typical picture of a chick you see in children's books.
Sunshine, rarely would join in with the flock. When I would put food down, Sunshine would be last to come over and peck at it. Then she would not stick around to enjoy it. A few pecks here and there and then she was off to check out the yard.
Each chicken has their own personality.
This is the last picture I have of her taken on 7-7-12.
And the good news is.............
Blackie is a ROOSTER!!
We have been hearing odd noises coming from our back yard for the past couple of days, not sure if it was a cockle-doodle-do because honestly it sounded more like a throat clearing. Then we thought it was Rainbow, the Lavender Bantam Cochin, because we were told it was not sexed, and we had a 50/50 chance of getting a Rooster. So we kept looking at Rainbow, which showed no signed of being a Rooster.
The hatchery, and many many chicken websites online said that within 6 weeks you will know if you have a rooster in your flock because at 6 weeks of age they start crowing. So 6 weeks came and went no crowing.
So here were are 4 months later and we start hearing half crowing, coming from someone in the flock.
About 10 minutes after Mr Almond found sunshine dead, I heard it an official cockle-doodle-do, and I went outside to see it was..... BLACKIE!!! I nearly fell over in surprise.
Blackie is the smallest in our flock, maybe 5 lbs, belting out the smallest crow I have ever heard. I took him right inside where it was still dark in the house, and put him in bed with me. (With a towel of course, no poop in my bed). He settled right down, and went to sleep with me until almost 10 am, where I took Him outside and for the rest of the day I only heard about 4 more crows.
Now if you have ever been to Kauai, Hawaii, you will have no doubt how a rooster sounds because while you are on the island, a rooster crows every 10 seconds. The island is covered in chickens and roosters, they are at the mall, the beach, in the roads, at your resort, everywhere.
So we were all in surprise when we discovered it was Blackie who was crowing.
See the tail feathers, and the chest feathers, yep Blackie is a rooster.
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