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Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Comb Credentials

Monique may be an imposter! All this time, we've believed her when she claimed to be a Dominique, chicken, but recent news articles about questionable credentials led me to wonder whether the critters I have are who and what they claim to be. So I began to investigate further.

Seems that Dominiques have rose combs, which are kind of flat and smooth on top. Now, does Monique's comb look like a rose comb to you?
When she was younger, her comb did look a lot different from Sam's and Henrietta's. But now she's older, her comb is starting to look kind of spiky- more like a single comb. Which makes me think she may be a barred rock. Monique has always been kind of stand-offish- like she felt she was better than the others. Maybe she figured if she claimed to be a rare breed she'd get better treatment or more attention or something- who knows what chickens think?

At any rate, she had us fooled. Maybe because she's such a refined, quiet hen who is very good at what she does. She lays eggs very reliably. She doesn't peck at Emily and Henrietta ( who sometimes peck at each other mercilessly, but that's another story). She does a yeoman's job at digging up grubs and other harmful critters who threaten my pathetic garden crops. And most surprisingly, Sam seems to respect her need for independence. In other words, he doesn't mess with her. He did try a few times a long time ago, but she was quite firm in letting him know that she wanted no part of him- and that she certainly was not interested in his amorous advances. So Sam keeps his distance and Monique busily pecks away in peace.

So even if she did lie about her credentials, I'm not about to call her to task for it. I figure maybe she was a poor orphan egg who was cared for by a surrogate Dominique mother, and she just never had any reason to question her lineage. Besides, she is probably the only sane critter among the bunch of us, and around here sanity is a very rare commodity.

But if any of you folks can shed some light on exactly what breed she is, I'd like to know, just to satisfy my curiosity.

5 comments:

FarmWife said...

I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but she sure looks like a Barred Rock to me. I have a few and she'd get lost in my flock. My favorite chicken site is McMurry Hatchery. They have good pictures and descriptions. Maybe they could shed some light.

LauraHinNJ said...

No help to offer, just wanted to say that I'm enjoying your blog.

Unknown said...

farm wife- I love the McMurry site- it has a lot of good info. The farm store where Monique was purchased got their chicks from Ideal Poultry in Texas. The Ideal site notes that "Many times customers who want Barred Plymouth Rocks ask for "Dominikers". The guy in the store may have told me it was a Dominiker, which I assumed (taking into consideration the Alabama accent. which I often mistranslate)) was a Dominique. She sure looked like a Dominque when she was a chick-Oh well...

laurahinnj- I'm glad you're enjoying it-Sam and the girls are a lot of fun to watch and to write about.

Anonymous said...

Best regards from NY!
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Anonymous said...

Where did you find it? Interesting read » »