The Empty Chicken Coop

Approximately 100 years ago my daughter asked her father to build her a chicken coop so she could raise layers. Being the total and complete sucker he is for her he told her to figure out what kind of coop she wanted and he'd think about it. Twenty five saved pictures of drastically different coops later the crazy duo headed to Home Depot to get the necessary supplies to make her long awaited dream come true. It was fun to watch them out there working together, she got to assist him from start to finish measuring, cutting and assembling until we seriously had the Taj Mahal of chicken coops. This coop was made with love and care and dedication and then it sat there empty, actually I think it may have held a beer bottle for awhile but it sat lonely and waiting for it's occupants to arrive. I don't really have a good reason for building this fancy coop and then not immediately finding the perfect tenants for it, I mean I'm gonna kinda blame it on him (sorry babe). He always had a reason she couldn't get her chickens right now even though he built her the perfect coop that sat empty.Cut to four years later when our ag department did a hatchling program she once again asked her daddy if we could bring home a few of the chickens. I can't explain why now it was ok (really y'all can anyone explain their husband?) but in any case he decided that this was the time to say yes so while he did a little maintenance on the coop she and I went to pick our three hens. This was a simple process since they were already sexed and we had only hens to choose from, so she picked three and we loaded them in a kennel and put that kennel in the back seat of her truck for the drive home. (Y'all! It's a 100+ degrees outside I wasn't gonna put them in the bed of the truck!) We get home and quickly get them out of the back seat so he wouldn't know that they had an air-conditioned ride to their new home and carefully placed them in their backyard oasis. They took to it right away and we spent a stupid amount of time standing there watching them peck the ground. It's actually kind of relaxing y'all, don't knock it 'till you try it.The next morning as I'm pouring my coffee I hear the not so subtle sounds of a rooster crowing. Now let me fill y'all in, we live on an old golf course that is just green space now (until stupid builders come and put a house right behind us) and beyond that is the oil fields where people have donkeys and chickens and yes a rooster. Y'all this was not the soft sound of crowing from beyond the tree line that I'm used to, this was in my backyard. So I walk to the window and there atop the fence is perched Isabelle (who I'm embarrassed to say I called Josephine because, well how can I be expected to tell chickens apart when half the time I can't remember my own kids birthdays). As I quickly race outside to shoo her off the fence before my dogs decided they were having fresh chicken for breakfast I hear again the crowing of a rooster. Surely these are not my chickens cock a doodle doo-ing! They'd been sexed y'all! We had hens not roosters! We loved them already (well Gracie and I did, Craig not so much) and we are very much a family of once we get you we keep you even if you are a complete and total pain in the butt! I mean seriously, there just aren't give backs in our world. So I go out and Isabelle jumps down and looks at me and all is well until I go back inside and she starts up again, she has clearly heard her new friend from across the trees and she is talking to him.This goes on for about another hour and then all is quiet and we go on with our day, until the sun is about to set and there the little turd goes again. (Did y'all know they crow more than just in the morning? I didn't but then again I'm new to the yardbird world.) So once again we go out and get them into the coop to roost for the night and we move on with life. The next morning I'm sitting on the back porch with my coffee watching the sun rise and here they come out of their coop and off goes Isabelle like an alarm clock waking the whole damn neighborhood. Now here's the deal y'all. I LOVE the sound of a rooster crowing and I wake before the sun most days so this sound and the fact that she was speaking to me didn't bother me at all. What bothered me was that I had a hen crowing like a dadgumned rooster and I have neighbors. Let me also point out that Isabelle is very high maintenance and would crow if she wanted attention, so multiple times during the day I would have to go outside and sit by her coop and talk with her until she got bored and walked away from me. Ya know she's kinda like my children in that way.I spent the better part of my Thursday researching chickens. I was trying to find out what the deal was with my new confused yardbird. Was she sexed wrong and was actually a rooster? Was she mimicking the sounds of the roosters she had been housed with? Was she a hen that identified as a rooster? I mean we don't judge and if she thought she was a rooster that was fine by me but I live in a neighborhood with actual neighbors so ya know the crowing at 5:30 on Sunday mornings may have been a problem for some. So with much sadness we loaded up our sweet Isabelle and took her back and exchanged her for Chicka ( I can't explain the names y'all) who is very much a hen (remember I researched the hell out of these things so I feel confident in this opinion). Last night I watched our three yard birds happily roost themselves without any help from their humans and this morning I accidently slept late which never would've happened if Isabelle was still here to make sure I was up with the sun. So it's once again quiet in my back yard and I can't tell y'all how sad I am. I'm positive that when we finally move it wont be long until we have an Isabelle 2.Oh and if you're wondering...after all my research I think Isabelle is actually a rooster who was sexed incorrectly but he had the most beautiful feathers so I think maybe he was okay with his rather feminine name. It's not my place to judge y'all.