Hen in Wolf's Clothing

Those of you who follow this blog have read about my nine chickens (chicks) named after female musicians, and you understand how these fine feathered girlfriends have added both levity and balance to this uptown girl.

You may also remember that each hen lays her own style of egg, and the eggs often match her personality.?

?Cher and Tina Turner, two Polish Crested charmers, lay delicate little white and brown eggs. Tina broods a lot.?

?Britney, an unpredictable bird with head feathers that often look like they’ve been shaved, lays reddish-speckled eggs with a lot of character. Sometimes she lays them in the laying boxes, other times on the ground.?

?Miley and Stevie lay larger eggs in shades of brown that have a solid confidence about them.??

Lizzo’s blush-colored eggs are so perfect that they look airbrushed.?

?Aretha and Dolly lay eggs in a mind-boggling shade of spring green.?

I can’t get enough of my girls and our weekend routine, so I raid our veggie garden and fridge for chicken treats, painstakingly cutting them and bringing them to my girls for breakfast and dinner to supplement their feed.??

I’m so enamored with these birds that I recently decided to add three more to the flock.?

I went to a chicken source who could promise me breeds with colored egg layers (either pink, green, or blue) to add more vibrancy to my egg stash.?

She delivered them as fluffy baby chicks who could fit into the palm of my hand, and when they were large enough not to need perpetual heat lamp warmth, they moved into their own section of the coop.?

They can’t integrate with the big girls until they can defend themselves. The pecking order is real.?

I named the new ones Pink, Tracy Chapman and Barbara Streisand.

The chicken lady had promised three females and offered to switch any that turned out to be roosters because sex is nearly impossible to detect in young chickens. Sure enough, as they matured and their voices began to change, I heard a cock-a-doodle-doo coming from the coop.?

It was clearly coming from Pink.

Pink, the musician, is always breaking gender stereotypes, so that felt right on character.

But as I was listening to Pink, I heard a second crowing! Could it be???

Tracy Chapman joined Pink’s band.

With my iPhone video rolling to catch the show, Barbara Streisand let out her own loud cock-a-doodle-doo.?

Really Babs?

We called the chicken lady, who came to investigate.?

What she found made us laugh, and it made us think.??

We actually didn’t have three roosters.?

We had two roosters and one brilliant hen (Barbara) who was disguising herself as a rooster so the boys would leave her alone.?

Barbara was doing the chicken version of what women have had to do to fit into a cock’s world for so many years: Hiding some of our femininity and taking on the sound and strut of male colleagues.

Of course, as our work worlds become more evenly balanced and the strong voices in the room come from females as well as males, we’ll be able to sing our own songs. But for most of us, there is still a way to go before the voices in the room are harmonious.

Luckily, in our little coop, I have more control.

Within a couple of days Barbara had two new roommates, also named Pink and Tracy. The roosters were shipped back to the farm.?

Barbara slowly stopped her doodle-doing and started strutting and clucking in her very hen-like way.??

Next week, all of the girls will be merged into one fun hen house.?

It feels like the dream many of my girlfriends and I have about our old age – all living together in a female compound, drinking local wine, watching chick flicks and unabashedly strutting our stuff.

That’s what you call fine feathered friends.