Mystery Chicken
Today I had lunch with a friend, and when she asked what else I was up to, I told her “I’m going to Juanita/Kenmore to some random condominiums to look for a chicken in a back yard and see if I can tell if it’s a hen or a rooster.”
Sometimes I don’t realize what I’ve gotten myself into until I actually get to where I’ve gotten myself. Like today, it wasn’t until I pulled up to some condos and parked my car that I realized I was going to have to get OUT of my car and walk around in peoples’ yards in my nice boots and long sweater… to look for a chicken. So to make sure my body would be found if I was murdered, I posted my location to Facebook before I got out of my car. Safety first, people!
Then I got out of my car and walked between two condominiums into a back yard space where people have patios and sliding doors. It was not somewhere I should have really been walking around. I stood there for a second and looked left, thinking “I am never going to find this chicken.” Then I looked to my right and he was standing right there, staring at me.
“Hey lady.”
This is a homeless chicken who showed up here. A nice lady in one of the condos is trying to find out how to help the chicken. She contacted me, hoping I could help. She told me it was a black hen, but when she sent a stock photo of what it looked like, to me it looked more like a cockfighting rooster than a little black hen. I cannot rescue cockfighting roosters. They’re both illegal and too noisy for my area. So I offered to go take a look in person to see if I could really tell more about the chicken.
Unfortunately I can’t really tell much more. It might be a dark cornish chicken, which is a bird often used for meat. Or it might be an aseel/asil chicken, which is a bird often used for cockfighting. Either way it’s dumped or has run away and is now lost and homeless and chilling behind some condos. I think it’s a young roo, but it could also be a hen. It’s not a cornish hen though, as they have brownish coloring mixed in with the black. This kid was all black.
This image shows how difficult it can be to correctly identify a chicken. The top row is a fighting bird, with a hen on the left and a roo on the right. The middle row is this chicken. And the bottom row is a dark cornish bird, with a hen on the left and a roo on the right. It’s anyone’s best guess.
I fed the chicken and left a tub of chicken feed for the nice lady who’s going to try and find a home or sanctuary for this chicken. It wouldn’t let me get anywhere near it so I couldn’t catch it, nor do I have anywhere to take it even if I could. Sometimes there’s only so much you can do.
For now, he (or she) is fed. And I have another odd story to share.
Just another day here at Ducks and Clucks.
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