chose a walnut branch that lead to the night perches and slept on that. When Delores became a big, beautiful Golden Phoenix adult rooster, I thought the hens would probably make absolute fools of themselves trying to get his attention – and if he ignored them it would serve them right! I suppose I should have done something about the name – but Delores responded to “Delores” and appeared fine with it. (Also, my Aunt Delores would have been devastated if I changed his name.) A friend suggested calling him “Del” – which sort of made sense – but that sounded like he was lead singer in a retro 60’s band. As long as Delores didn’t mind – and let’s face it, he didn’t care – I was perfectly content to have a sweet rooster named Delores.
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Delores, at ten weeks old, was quickly getting integrated into the LUIS MATOS MANIA of the flock. Because these six little chicks started out in an aquarium with a heat lamp in my study, then moved to a large hamster cage, then finally outside in a cage kept inside the barn, the grown chickens had all slowly acclimated to seeing Delores and his sisters. However, the first few times I put the babies in the open with the hens, I cautiously supervised the meeting. There was blustering and a little pushing by the big chickens – similar to what you might see on a junior high playground the first week of school – but nothing too severe. Once when the largest hen, Joan Crawford, pulled at Delores’s tail, he ran to me and flew into my arms – but when I scolded Joan and she stalked off to pout, Delores was brave enough to go back and try again. The pecking order shook out fairly easily within a couple days, with Delores towards the middle.
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