Roosters

We’ve a way with chicks around here…they almost always end up being roosters!

Out of our 11 chicks, 8 made it to chicken-adulthood.  Out of the 8, only 2 were hens!  5 cocks learning to crow crossed the road (literally, to our neighbor who takes them to his mom, who takes ‘care’ of them).  Which left…barn yard math…one rooster chick…which is sort of an oxymoron.  The darling Buff Orpington yellow chick, Buffy, that was supposed to be a hen started to crow, not very well, but crow nonetheless.  Buffy was Buff.  The rule is one rooster to a hen-house.

We were very partial to Left Over Lionel, he was a nice looking rooster.  We liked seeing him strut around the yard, but our hen-house genetics were starting to get out of hand.  Three of our hens were now his daughters…can you say, ut-oh.  In an effort to give him a better option than just ‘crossing the road’, we did what many farmers here do…we turned to Facebook.  The Ellensburg Farm Exchange page to be exact…one rooster, friendly, free to a good home…and he got snatched right up and we were promised he’d have a new yard to strut his stuff in.

As far as Mr. Buff, he doesn’t stand still long enough for me to give you a good picture of him.  His crowing still needs some work, but he is the cock of the yard now, and I must say he has figured that out.  For some reason, the hens all seem to be around the house at about 5:00pm.  Mr. Buff seems to think this is the perfect time for him to…uhmmm, be with his hens, if you know what I mean.  In the past two weeks, I’ve seen more chicken/rooster antics than I need.  Yelling at them to go “rent a hen-house”, doesn’t really work.

All I can say, is that maybe we should maybe have named Mr. Buff…Randy.