OttawaHerald.com -- Community News. Community Connections.

	Franklin County, Kansas, USA

Subscriber Services Home Delivery Gift Subscription Stop-Start Delivery Missing Paper Back Issues Newsstand Locations Shopper Locations

Advertising Services Manage Your Account Place a Classified Ad Place a Display Ad Advertise Online Business Finder Directory

Other Services Submit News Laminated Items Photos & Keepsakes Article Archives Contact Us History of the Herald Our Policies

Suggest a poll topic

2010-03-12

2010-03-09

2010-01-19

Agriculture

Lifestyles

Friday, November 13, 2009 10:54 PM

Background in chickens

There it is in the Nov. 7 Herald. I have been maligned or misunderstood, or taken too literally; whatever, by Bob Brenner. So, I now feel a need to defend myself about, of all things, chickens.

Mr. Brenner really knows nothing about me. I have never met him, that I remember. I do, Mr. Brenner, know a few things about chickens. It all started as a child in Oklahoma as a 4-H project; a dozen White Leghorns that produced wonderful, large eggs and a fryer or two. After appreciating that, my parents went on to raise and harvest 200 “White Rock” chicks each year for several years. Know that their care and maintenance was on my chore list. We had chicken every Sunday, traded eggs for milk and fed a large family quite well. And, yep, we kept a few hens (females, that is) and got eggs without a rooster (male, that is)!

Ok, now that I hopefully have established my credibility, I would like to discuss male/female versus roosters and hens. Before doing so, let me point out that I am aware the terms used here, except “pullet,” are used to refer to both foul and humans (homo sapiens, that is). This admission might prevent additional misunderstanding.

I remember the young ones being called “chicks.” The terms “rooster” and “hen” were reserved for the mature or adult. (Yes, this has been used to describe us.) We also knew that a rooster was a male and a hen was female. We pretty much figured that out by the way they behaved. (Again, one’s thoughts could flip to us.) For sure, a pullet was not a hen until she produced eggs.

My experience in Miami — Florida, that is — had nothing to do with any lack of knowledge concerning gender or experience. Suffice it to say that the suburbs of a metropolitan area with buckets of rainfall and high temperatures accompanied by strict ordinance enforcement are not compatible with raising chickens. That dog quit huntin’ when my neighbors got wind of the situation — not a proper expression for chicken house and pen, but you will probably get the drift. They did!

Did the chicken or the egg come first? At our house, all we knew was that Dad came home with the chicks (baby chickens, that is. I want to be sure Mr. Brenner understands everything). They grew up and if they were hens and escaped the frying pan, we got eggs. Oh yeah. None of the males (roosters, that is) escaped the frying pan.

By the way, Bob, my PhD is in microbiology and I am a board certified geneticist, so if you would like to discuss this further, just let me know.

— Richard Warren,

Ottawa

E-mail this story to a friend | Print this article |
Enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Ottawa Herald.

Background in chickens

E-mail this story to a friend | Print this article | Enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Ottawa Herald.

E-mail this story to a friend | Print this article |
Enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Ottawa Herald.