This is Nugget, one of our flock. And I don’t know whether Nugget is a rooster or a hen. I call myself a chicken pro, and even I can’t tell!
Checking the clues
They say that if the neck feathers are pointed, it’s a rooster, and if they’re round, it’s a hen. These are pointed, any way you look at them. (Sorry — you don’t like being held this long, do you?) The saddle feathers at the lower back follow the same rule, and those are round, so: hen. The tail shape looks like a hen’s too.
The face has that scary look typical of roosters, but the comb is tiny, which says hen. When I hold Nugget, the weight of the muscles and the solid, heavy feel are rooster. But the gap between the pelvic bones is slightly open, and from behind it looks like the bottom of a hen that lays eggs. The voice is a rooster’s, too — yet I’ve never heard Nugget crow.
I’m not certain, but I’ve heard that in chickens it’s fairly common for a bird to turn out somewhere between a rooster and a hen. Maybe this is one of those? What do you all think?
Tortoise bath time
Next, our leopard tortoises. When I put them in water like this, they poop. They don’t drink much water, so it’s said to be good to soak them once a day. Usually I just let them sit in a tub with about 5 millimeters of water, but they were so dirty — they don’t groom themselves and they live in sand — that today I gave them a very gentle scrub. Why is there poop on your head?
Their shells have nerves running through them, so they can feel the scrubbing. Sorry! Tortoises are prone to pneumonia, so I’m careful not to let water get into their mouths. Some are used to this and some aren’t: this one waved its legs wildly and kept spinning around. Tortoises are surprisingly hard to hold. I often see them for sale in pet shops, but these really aren’t animals you can keep indoors.
Sparkling clean! You can see the difference between a clean one and a dirty one at a glance. I haven’t weighed them, but I think they’re about twice the size they were when they arrived.
After the bath comes dinner. Their play area is still broken, so for now they stay in this small space just for sunbathing and eating. Tortoises wander off quickly, so you have to set them right in front of the food. They ate a lot. Eat well and grow big!
Thanks for watching Chicken Paradise Hawaii. See you in the next episode!