A TRANSGENDER chicken is one of the many weird and wonderful spectacles that will be exhibited at the Royal Darwin Show in the Northern Territory this year.

Fannie Bay resident Pam Hamil’s hen turned rooster, “Hooster” will be on show in the poultry section of the Darwin showgrounds next weekend.

media_camera The transgender chicken scratches around its Fannie Bay home in the Northern Territory. Picture: Keri Megelus

“She’s a bit of a freak of nature,” Mrs Hamil said.

“For five years she’s been a regular brown hen laying eggs in my backyard and then suddenly three months ago she transformed into a crowing male rooster.

“I noticed one day she started looking pretty butch — she grew red rooster combs on the top of her head, wattles under the beak, thick legs and long tail feathers.

“I was thinking of entering her in the show this year but what category would you put her under?

media_camera For five years she was a brown hen laying eggs. Picture: Keri Megelus

“She doesn’t look anything like a hen and she’s certainly not a rooster, so we decided just to put her on display in the poultry section as something of interest for the public.”

Mrs Hamil said apparently spontaneous reversal can occur in hens when their ovary is somehow damaged and can no longer produce the necessary levels of oestrogen.

It can also relate to flock dynamics since it primarily happens when there is only hens and the flock doesn’t have a rooster, so one of the hens becomes one.

“I spoke to the lady who runs the poultry section at the show and apparently it does happen more often now,” she said.

After 25 years of being involved in the Royal Darwin Show, Mrs Hamil says she’s not new to some of the bizarre things you can find there.

media_camera Three months ago she transformed into a crowing male rooster. Picture: Keri Megelus

“I run the arts and craft section and last year I found a green tree frog that had been born with three legs in our hall,” she said.

“I ended up keeping him, he’s at home in a glass aquarium.

“We call him Prince Ching because it’s Prince Charming without the arm.

“I don’t know what it is about me that attracts these weird and wonderful animals but I’m not in a PFAS area so it can’t be that.”

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