April 04, 2012

The King Has Lost His Crown

You may remember a little while back I posted this photo of our young Salmon Favorelle rooster, Elvis. Notice his nice, bright, spiky comb. Well, somehow in the midst of the mildest winter in decades, this bird managed to get frostbite! When we close up the chicken pen at night, we just assume that all of the chickens have put themselves to bed and don't bother opening up the coop to do a headcount. One night, for mysterious reasons, Elvis did not end up in the coop. We discovered him the next morning waiting outside the pen for his peeps to be released. This happened to have been THE coldest night of the mildest winter in decades. A day or two later I noticed a faint black line appearing about midway down his comb, and over the next few weeks, the black line got darker and spread to engulf all of his little spikes. I wasn't sure if I should take some kind of action, and online research gave me two options, 1) perform comb surgery and "trim" the blackened areas off or 2) do nothing and it would fall off of its own accord eventually. I opted for option two, and sure enough, nature took its course and Elvis now looks like he's had a crew cut.
For the record, it is very hard to take a picture of a chicken. They do not want to pose for you.

The loss of his "crown" has not affected Elvis' demeanor at all. He is now almost a full year old, quite the accomplished crower, and has recently discovered his amorous side (much to the dismay of the hens, it seems). Courting is not his strong point. He prefers the unannounced pounce on the nearest available hen. He's not very discriminating either, much to Chickadena's dismay. Whereas our previous rooster definitely viewed Chickadena (our asexual rooster?) as a rival male and treated him as such despite there being no competition, Elvis seems to view Chickadena as one of his harem. I watched Chickadena narrowly escape one of Elvis' unannounced pounces, protesting loudly the whole time, and then led Elvis on a futile chase around the yard. Poor little fella. It's a tough world for an asexual rooster who just wants to be left alone.

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