What I Have Learned About Roosters

When we started having problems with our rooster being aggressive, I thought we might be able to curb his bad behavior. Well, I hoped. When it kept going and got worse, I started researching.

You know what? Mainstream sources of farm-related information are not interested in roosters. If you search extension-service information and animal science departments of universities, you will find almost nothing. Really, all I ever found was that veterinarians can surgically remove the spurs from a rooster. That's it. Maybe I missed something. But it appears that conventional, official, mainstream advice now is "Don't keep a rooster." But yet I know of many people who keep (or have tried to keep) a rooster. There are two others we can hear from our house. My parents had one for a while. My co-worker has one. A former classmate has one. People do this. Apparently we are way out there, man. Totally alternative. Crunchy.

So, without the university/extension sources I wanted, my best sources of "published" information were Internet discussion groups for people who raise chickens. Read enough on those and you get the general wisdom. (Um, yeah, I suppose there are books. I do work in a library. But there again, I figured I'd be getting one person's opinion rather than study-based information from an organization. But, no, I didn't really look.)

So, from my experience and that of other regular folks who've shared theirs, here's what I've learned about roosters:

1. They can be sweet as anything when they're young. Once testosterone starts up, all bets are off.

2. Some roosters are nice and gentle. Some are mean and aggressive. They just are the way they are. You're not going to change that.

3. To increase your odds of a mild-tempered rooster, you need to get one from a line of mild-tempered roosters. Don't be surprised if your accidental rooster in a group of supposedly female chicks is aggressive. He wasn't bred for gentleness.

4. You cannot make an aggressive rooster stop being aggressive. You can make him see you, individually, as higher up in the pecking order and stop attacking you. But just because he respects you -- that doesn't stop him from attacking your wife, your children, your visitors, your puppy....

5. To stop a rooster from attacking you, you can pick him up and hold him firmly until he stops fighting. Or you can hold him down on the ground. (Uh, wear leather gloves and other protective gear. We did not try these methods ourselves, so I cannot tell you exactly what happens.) Or you can kick him or hit him with a stick. Yes, I know that sounds cruel. It feels cruel (well, if you're a wuss like me). But when you are literally under attack by a male bird who is protecting his hens or who is hoping to dominate you through violence (hey, this is nature), you will do what you have to to protect yourself or your kids. (And maybe you'll cry later. Or maybe that's just me.)

6. Once you have proven to the rooster that you are the boss with the above methods, he probably will leave you alone. But each person who wants him to stop attacking them has to take him on individually. Do you want your 5-year-old giving that a try?

7. Sometimes you have to throw in the towel. A farm animal is a farm animal, and you don't want chicks from an aggressive rooster, anyway. Those males will likely be the same. So if the benefit of the rooster isn't worth the trouble he gives your family, you've got to make a hard decision. Some of us believe in giving an animal a good life and a quick death, and then, as a friend of mine said, "repurposing" a resource.

Hand-crafted Hay Bales

We planted our orchard in an alfalfa field. The alfalfa between the trees remains. But you can't drive a tractor and baler between the trees. And we needed some bedding for our chickens, having nothing else without purchasing it.

So my husband borrowed a weed cutter from his brother and has been cutting it by hand. It's like swinging a golf club.



Then he and the kids have raked it up and hauled it in the wheelbarrow. We had a hay pile most of the time while we had many chickens. But now we don't need so much bedding with just a dozen chickens in the coop. So my husband wanted to make litte rectangular bales somehow to store the extra.

He invented a manual haybaler:



It's a hinged frame made from scraps we had lying around. He and the kids would pack lots of hay into it, and he'd hold the kids' hands while they jumped up and down to pack it. They thought it was fun. Then my husband would tie twine around the bales and dump them out.

So now we have a few haybales stacked for sometime later when we need some bedding.



We'll probably just mow the hay with the lawnmower for the rest of the season since we shouldn't need it.

A Big Day

So what would you guess we're building?



Maybe a concession stand?

A produce stand?

Does this give you any clues?



It's a chicken coop.




We got chicks today!



Am I lucky or what? I love chicks. They don't stay cute very long, but while they do, oh, are they sweet. My kids were thrilled that, for the first time in their lives, we actually got to bring chicks home with us, not just look at them in the store.



We got 87 of them.



75 are for meat: 25 for us, 25 for my parents, and 25 for my brother-in-law and his family. 12 are to expand my parents' egg-laying crew. Those are the black ones.

Yes, we've butchered chickens before. My parents raised a bunch last summer and we helped with the butchering. And we've occasionally chased their chickens into the coop at night. So we're not completely clueless about what we're getting into. But it will still be an adventure.

Eating Green

I found this Minneapolis Star-Tribune article very interesting yesterday:
50 Ways to Eat Green

I don't come close to doing it all, but it intrigues me. I could take some steps. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and some other things I've read have raised my awareness.

I do think that saving energy by turning your teapot off before it whistles is a bit over the top. That's a matter of seconds. You might let your spaghetti sauce cook an extra 15 minutes or your soup an extra hour. Leaving your oven on too long is wasteful, but I'm not going to worry about my tea kettle.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I've just started reading this book. The author and her family moved to a farm and endeavored to eat only food "whose provenance we really knew." They grew their own or bought things that were locally produced. It should be interesting to read.

Good Eggs

I buy eggs from my parents, who have free-range chickens: beautiful Buff Orpingtons.

The best eggs in the world are farm-fresh from chickens that have eaten a natural, varied diet. Especially when the weather is warm and they're eating green things and insects, the eggs have so much flavor.

Two of my kids had never eaten an entire fried egg in their lives. They thought they were yucky. The first time they tried the free-range eggs with dark yellow yolks, they loved them and cleaned their plates. Fresh eggs also fry and poach much more neatly, so they look nicer, too.