Angela's Issues

I want to talk about Angela. Angela is one of our chickens. She is the only non-reddish brown chicken. She is mostly a silvery white, with black. Although recently she has been getting some yellow on her and some teal in her tail.

I don't think she's a she. Well, not totally. I think we may have a dyke or maybe intersex chicken.

You see, she is more female in appearance, so always assumed she was a hen. Americaunas, the breed of chicken we have, lay blue-green eggs, and the legs of the hens are also blue green. Her legs are blue green, but there is a noticeable presence of yellow as well, the color of the rooster's legs.

Hens typically have a small, pinkish comb, while roosters have a large bright red comb. Angela's is larger and redder than the rest of the hens, but smaller than Dwight's comb.

The other hens are much smaller than her and Dwight, who are about the same size.

She doesn't 'flock' as much as the other hens. She is much more independent, and doesn't stick as close to the other chickens, similar to Dwight's behavior. Meredith, Phyllis and Kelly actually stick closer to Angela than Dwight if everyone else is, too, but Pam is definitely Dwight's girl. Although she still doesn't like to be separated from them. Chicken are stupid, but smart enough to realize they need each other.

She is very bossy. Bossy where she is at the top of the pecking order. She will even peck Dwight, who is the ruler of the roost, usually. She even herds the girls the way Dwight does. We thought maybe she was just the head hen.

Then came the shocker.

Angela mounted Meredith! I mean, we've been seeing Dwight mount Pam and Kelly (mostly Pam), but until recently, Angela didn't display this very roosterish behavior. We've always noticed she was rather cocky, but not to the point where mating comes into it. They are getting to that age, too. We've started watching for eggs now that they're getting to be old enough.

What if Angela isn't a hen? Maybe we should ask a farm animal vet about it. I haven't heard anything about biologically intersex/transexual chickens, but I've heard things about cocky hens. Maybe she is just mounting them without mounting them. I guess we could see if she lays, but with 5 hens in one house, it'll be hard to see who lays what.