Too many birds.

Jack has several different breeds of hens.  He has been going to birds sales for the last few years and he has quite a collection of interesting things out there.

He also loves to hatch out...he's got an incubator but lately he just gets the bird to sit and hatch them out themselves.  He knows which girls will sit....and he'll collect a bunch of different eggs from different birds and then put them all under the girl that will sit.

So, he had eggs hatching in the spring and then more just hatched out in September.

The trouble with all these hatch outs is that he ends up with roosters.  So. many. roosters.

Last year he took them to the bird sale and some guy came along and decided to buy them all from him.  He wanted a yard full of roosters....just for fun.  Suddenly Jack was in the business of making rooster dreams come true.  I had no idea that people would want a yard full of roosters.

Roosters don't just crow 'cock a doodle doo' in the morning.  They scream like someone is being murdered at all hours.  Very early in the dark of the morning.  And at two in the afternoon.  It's non stop.  Everyday.

And we have a lot of roosters at the moment.

And somehow we missed the bird sale this fall.  We thought it was 'the next weekend' but it was that day....and we had missed it.

So Jack went out and took lots of photos of his birds and I put an ad on kijiji for him.

And now I've been dealing with all the questions about the birds....only I know nothing about birds.

These birds people are serious about their birds.

One woman came to pick up some hens and when she arrived I just told Jack to go out and deal with her.  He was the one selling the birds.  But he came back to the house and said that she needed to talk to me.  I made small talk with her and apologized for our dog sniffing her the way dogs sniff strangers and then she just started talking on and on....and I had no idea if she was talking about breeds of birds or dogs.  And then she left and I asked Jack....was she talking about birds or dogs?

Birds. mom. BIRDS.

Emails asking about breeds and what's left.

And can you sex the chicks?

NO.  I CAN'T SEX THE CHICKS.

The emails were a little awkward.  But I kept on.

One gentleman came to buy some birds and then he asked about sexing the chicks.  I told him that we don't do that.  I don't know how.  He said that if you have a really good hen that she will sex them for you.

I was so confused that I couldn't even ask more about that.  I just wanted the conversation to be over.

So...what's left Jack?  Someone wanted to know.

He said...

Roosters....the buffs are all gone.  But there is a jungle fowl rooster, a speckled Sussex, and a golden laced Wyandotte and some other bantam roosters that are crossbred.

What?  Can you repeat that?

And he repeated it several times...because he was saying it way to fast and I had no idea what he was saying.  and I needed to actually type it...spell it....for a stranger.

And then of course....the person wanted to know if one was a standard or a bantam.

And I had to wait until Jack came back in the house to get the answer.

But I'm learning a lot about birds.

Hopefully next year he won't miss the bird sale.  And that guy wanting the yard full of roosters will return.

I wish I could find that guy.  He would solve all my bird problems.

Brenda