So the Punishment for Bad Behavior is.... Better Digs!

There is now a final chapter on The Ballad of Duck the Drake.  Turns out none of our neighbors heard her crowing, after all, but given that we don't like being woken up an hour before the alarm is set to go off, we had to dispense with her anyway.

Duck now lives in Millican with 60 or 70 other birds, though she is definitely the only Barred Rock chicken on the place, and possibly the only transgendered chicken on the place.  Only time will tell, of course.  I suppose if some poor graduate student with nothing better to do wants to make a splash with a paper on the subject, this would be an excellent opportunity to examine the whole "nature/nurture" question.  Us, we just want the eggs.  Anyway, Millican Farms is about as soft a landing place as this obnoxious creature could have hoped for.  They have, as noted, a ton of other chickens.  They also have a turkey, who survived Thanksgiving by being pathetic and cute, and who lays an egg every other day.

We are now curious what might happen if a transgendered chicken named "Duck" manages to fertilize the egg of a turkey.  Again, not curious enough to avoid scrambling the egg and serving it on a warm tortilla with lots of sausage, hash browns, and jalapeños, but it makes for an interesting hypothetical.

 For those who might want to visit this funky fowl, Millican Farms is an interesting establishment.  Brazos Locavores recently made their monthly farm visit to Millican, and it was a fairly thoroughly raved event.  This farm is actually a commercially viable version of what we are trying to do on a much smaller scale in our back yard -- replete with irrigation from a pond that collects rainwater, and in which they are considering stocking either catfish or tilapia, depending on how well it holds water during a drought.  The chickens are free-range, which we can't actually do in College Station, but then again, we now only have six birds, as opposed to seventy, so we think (all things being equal) we're doing pretty well.  But if we ever have the chance... this is the model we want to follow.

Expect Millican Farms to expand into pepper production soon, and maybe even cucumbers and canteloupe.  And if you ever visit, look for the Barred Rock in their flock.  There's only one; she probably doesn't mind, though.  In so very many ways, Duck is one of a kind...

Happy farming!