Donnelly has owned birds for years. She currently has three hens: Lily, age 7, an Orpington; Edith, 7, a Rhode Island Red; and Pearl, 3, a Plymouth Rock. She bought them as chicks from a feed store.

What and Why RI: It's filled in now, but in its prime Rocky Point pool hosted Olympians. Here's the story. A Rhode Island Red chicken — the official state bird — roams a backyard in Middletown.

According to Polutta, Cinnamon Queen chickens and Rhode Island Red chickens both lay brown eggs. The Rhode Island Red is one of the more popular breeds in the Lowcountry, she said.

Our state bird, of course, is the Rhode Island Red chicken, perhaps the most well-known moniker of the species. Yet north of us, the Granite State dares to claim something called a New Hampshire ...

That was the 1930s, when the Rhode Island Red ruled the roost. The buff-chested bird was the fowl of choice at America’s dinner table from the turn of the 20th century through World War II.