Tuesday, June 23, 2015

How Chicken Are You?

Howdy y'all! Crystal here. I was chatting the other day with a writer friend who admits she's a city girl, and I discovered something. I take many things I know and learned growing up as a country girl for granted. I use these tidbits all the time in my stories, so I think nothing of it until I come across someone who has no idea. Ever had that happen to you?

Let's take chickens for example.

Did you know once you teach a chicken where to roost they'll return to that location every evening?
(Barring there's not something that's taken over that space that would eat them, i.e. a chicken snake. However, I have had my chickens go around a snake carcass to get to their roost. Crazy, I know.)

Did you know that a rooster will crow pretty much any time of the day, not just at the crack of dawn?
Although they do it then too. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in my office typing or having a conversation on the phone to hear my rooster crowing outside the window. I like to think of it as their warning system. :)

Did you know chickens will go cannibal on each other?
Recently, my mother (who has more poultry than me) put multiple hens and chicks in one cage. A couple days later, one hen was hiding from the others cause they'd nearly killed her. They didn't mind her chicks though. Go figure.

Did you know a rooster's spurs can really hurt?
Someday the encounter where I learned that will have to end up in a book. Suffice it to say that bird ended up on a dinner plate. :)

How about you? Any lessons life has taught you that you might be taking for granted? Were any of these tidbits news to you?

Don't forget to leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for Hemorrhaging of Souls by Nicola Furlong. The winner will be announced in Monday's Weekly Wind-up post.

10 comments:

  1. We have chickens at work. I work in Early Childhood. I'm not a fan of chickens. That could be because the task of cleaning out the coop always falls on me. There is a life lesson right there. I really need to learn how to say no.

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    1. I agree with you, Mary. Learning when to say "no" is a lesson we all have to learn. :)

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  2. I've heard those roosters crow in the middle of the day and wondered, "What's up with that?"" It makes sense this could be their warning system. Thanks!

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    1. I don't know for certain, but it made sense to me. :) Do you have roosters near you?

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  3. I had to do lots of chicken "research" when I wrote my historical novel, AMANDA'S BEAU. Learned a lot about 'em and was surprised.

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  4. Did you know that they invented red-tinted glasses in 1903 and used them til the 1970's? They were used on chicken to disguise blood. Later they found out that chickens are color blind. Thai's were the term rose colored glasses comes from.

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  5. I knew those things about chickens. My problem now is that I've lived so long in the country, after having grown up a city gal, I've forgotten what all those striking differences were (between city and country living), that were so obvious at first.

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    1. LOL. That's too bad. Those would be great differences to be able to note in a story. :)

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