He Goes By Paul Bunyan

This last spring, we ended up with an enormous mystery chicken. The “Buff Orpington pullet” chick I picked up with all the other assorted breeds quickly began to look very unlike a Buff Orpington. In fact, with it’s black and white plumage, this chicken looked more and more like some strange ptarmigan or wild fowl of the tundra. It also grew bigger and bigger than all the other chickens every day. I had no idea what it was. I was stumped.

Then one day, in the fall, it let out an unearthly howling moan. By this time it was three times the size of our other chickens, so I was a little startled by this. A giant howling chicken? Then I noticed the fancy tail feathers had grown longer, and upon hearing several other howls, decided this was a rooster with one booming, burly good morning crow! All our other roosters had come out months ago, so he must have just been a late bloomer.

It turns out Paul Bunyan is a Brahma. Apparently they are known for being calm and excellent foragers, so this rooster is a keeper. This presents a slight dilemma beings that we now have four roosters, but such are the dilemmas of farm life. As I have been following one of my absolute favorite blogs, Coldantler Farm, I noticed her giant rooster, Winthrop, must be the same sort when she described his morning howl. Here are a couple of great posts by the author, Jenna Woginrich, about her howling rooster: Winthrop, and Voice Lessons.

In honor of Paul Bunyan’s soulful, wailing moan, here is a link to a song by one of my favorite contemporary bands, Iron and Wine: The Rooster Moans.  Enjoy!