Transsexual
chicken causing a ruckus in Sweden

What appears to be a transsexual hen is causing a ruckus in a henhouse in southern Sweden, Agence France-Presse reports. The hen has grown a rooster comb, tail, and wattle and has been crowing. And the henhouse's resident rooster, Henry VIII, is hopping mad, Swedish media reported on Friday.

"Henry VIII is bloody angry," the owner of the henhouse, Christel Hammar-Malmgren, told the online edition of regional daily Blekinge Laens Tidning. "The other hens are mostly just surprised, but they seem to increasingly accept him or her."

Hammar-Malmgren woke up one morning in July to the sound of two roosters crowing instead of just one. To her surprise she discovered that one of the black hens, Anne Boleyn--all of the hens are named after Henry VIII's wives--had undergone a transformation. "She had lost most of her hen feathers and had begun growing a comb and tail," she said.

The transsexual hen joined the henhouse last year and was different from the start. She was uninterested in the usual hen chores and laid bad eggs, Hammar-Malmgren said. She insisted, however, that despite the change, and unlike the hen's namesake, there were no plans to end Anne Boleyn's days prematurely. (The Advocate)