The mighty Dot

I wanted to call this blog post ‘My big cock’ but feared that my whole blog might get taken down and/or I would start to attract the wrong kind of attention, even though my intent on this one is purely innocent, you understand.

Our massive new cockerel

So let me introduce you to ‘Dot’, the latest member of our extended animal family – a Silver Laced Wyandotte cockerel, who is close in size to your average African ostrich (well Emu maybe). This is the culmination of my husband spending the last few months on the phone, whispering in hushed tones when he thought I was out of earshot, “I’m looking for a really big cock……”. Then just as I was getting increasingly concerned that perhaps this remote, country living had sent him over the edge and he was about to run off with Bruce the town show-off, he rocked up home with my grand surprise. This handsome fella. The plan is we now let nature take its course and with luck by the spring we will have our own little family of chicks, the girls going on to lay us lots of eggs, boys destined for the pot. Time will tell whether our little experiment proves more successful than our last foray into poultry matchmaking. Ah Chauntecleer – God rest his soul. Still the randiest, largest chicken we have ever eaten, bar none.

Sex pest - moi?

I’m not sure what it is about hens and feathered farmyard creatures that sends my husband into a frenzied flurry of activity, clucking about to prepare the hen house, water troughs filled with all sorts of potions and tonics to welcome in our new visitor with the cockerel equivalent of a nice G&T. He even dragged the whole family out after dark, with head torches and wellies on to check on his prized bird and to give him a good dose of louse powder. Unfortunately he did not warn me of his intention as we left the house and so it was that I found myself an hour later, back in front of my computer on a video conference call with Seattle, covered in feathers (albeit pretty little silver-laced ones), my hair white with louse powder and with mud all over my face. Good job it was Hallowe’en or I’m not quite sure I would have got away with it!

So with all dependents, both the toddling and feathered variety, all safely tucked up in bed, we were feeling quite contented with our purchase. Right up until the point where the mouthy bugger starting crowing. At 4.30am. Made all the worse by the fact that we had smugly thought that we had nailed the clock changes with the kids at the weekend and put our 4am starts behind us for a while. Ach well, who needs sleep anyway…? 

And so finally to the name. Slightly less Chaucer, more first words type territory this time. The girls only managed to grasp the last part of his breed and so ‘Dot’ was born. Also fittingly, when my youngest was born it seemingly was a North Wales-ism to refer to small babies as ‘dots’ – as in, “Ah, what a little dot she is”.  So, with a good helping of irony, our massive cock will now forever more be known as ‘Dot’, or ‘Dotty’ to his friends. And let’s hope things do remain friendly, or we all know what will happen…