Golden Eggs Loyal Customers Prize Colbert Woman’s Eggs

Ruby Coon carefully collects the nine brown eggs her hens have laid, gently putting one at a time into an old coffee can.

Coon, who lives on a Colbert farm with her brother and sister-in-law, Herbert and Renee Smith, has kept chickens since 1944. She used to deliver eggs to her customers by the case but now Coon, 88, has taken down her “eggs” sign and only sells cartons to regular customers.

Coon raises Sexlink hens since people like the brown eggs they produce. But, a few months ago there was trouble in the chicken house when the Sexlinks displayed their displeasure with the bard-rock rooster with whom they were raised.

The yellow-legged fowl apparently bothered his black-legged sisters, and they mercilessly pecked his offending appendages.

So, Renee held the hen-pecked bird and Herbert spray-painted the rooster’s legs black. Problem solved. The hens stopped pecking his legs; then they started on his tail.

The Smiths clean the chicken house for Coon and feed the hens in the colder months, but she won’t give up her birds.

Her face lights up when she steps into the chicken house and hears what others might call a racket. “They’re always singing,” she says.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 Photos