Baby Jo , my home - grown hen , is all grown up .
I remember the first clock time I saw her . She was a small grey clump of hair , no bigger than a mouse . She was following her mother around , peep perpetually to make certain Mom knew where she was at all time .
I was n’t well-chosen to meet her . I did n’t want another chicken , and went through a lot of problem every day to pull the eggs out from under my broody hens to make certain none of them hatched . But this particular biddy had deal to incur an dense hiding spot . I had no approximation where she was . I knew one Clarence Shepard Day Jr. she would reappear with a brood of chicks at her side . I was take over when it turned out to be only one .
Had I knownBaby Jowas a biddy , I would n’t have been turn over at all . But I had no means of knowing , and the last thing I needed was a third cock in my cubic yard .
We set about call her Baby Jo flop off because her mom was one of the Jo ’s ( Betty Jo , Bobby Jo or Billie Jo — we could n’t tell them aside ) , though we did n’t know if she was Baby Jo or Baby Joe . It was n’t apparent for quite a while that she was indeed Baby Jo and that we were lucky enough to have acquired another biddy for our flock .
Baby Jo spend the first part of her life story at thebottom of the pecking order . Once her incredibly doting mother stopped taking care of her and let her be a grown - up chicken , the other biddy began putting her in her place . She was trail away from newly discovered score offoodand would get picked on just for being too close to one of her auntie .
But then , one day , Baby Jo get lucky . A few of my biddy and one of my cock follow down withavian pox . The Jo that came down with the sickness got it bad and had to go to the infirmary . I then I had to keep her separated from the flock for almost a week , locked aside in a African tea attack aircraft carrier in my bedroom . When I finallyreturned her to the grouping , the other hens made it clear that she was now low - biddy in the pecking order . Baby Jo was finally above someone in rank .
Although Baby Jo is amply integrated into the flock and even climbed a bit on the societal ladder , she is still different from the other birds . She ’s the one hen who insists on roosting on the extraneous edge of the hencoop every Nox instead of inside on the perch pole like the residue of the flock . When I go to the coop at night to shut the boo in , I have to pick her up and put her inside . She squawks in dissent each and every sentence .
It ’s been more than a year , and Baby Jo is full grown now . She is much bigger than her female parent and both her auntie , and await more like her father , Mr. Molly , than she does her mom . Two mean solar day ago , she at long last laid her first egg . That ’s when I knew my fuzzy little bird was truly farm up .
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