Red Bird, My Friend

dealing with cocky birds

Thank you so much to @cuzimrandomlikethat for the great cover, visible on the right. It was one of my top four favorites.

dealing with cocky birds

I had gotten quite a few breeds of layers during the second year of my bird-raising experiment. The majority of them were supposed to have been pullets. By this, it means that they were sexed before I purchased them and were supposed to all be female.

I also got a small batch of straight-run Rhode Island Reds. Straight run chicks haven't been sexed, so you can end up with male or female chicks. I had planned for this and expected to be dealing with maybe three that would find their way to the stockpot. It soon became apparent to me, though, that I had one rooster in each breed. And, much to my surprise, pretty much all my Rhode Island Red chicks seemed to be roosters.

So when some of my chicks started to crow, I knew they would need to be dealt with sooner rather than later. I didn't want a repeat performance of the Cain and Abel incident. This time, considering I was looking at about ten rooster brothers facing off, it wouldn't be pretty.

I already had a rooster, Daddy Chicken. He was a gift from my mother-in-law, a gentle rooster. His toes were all broken and he was rather pitiful when I got him. He was the 'Abel' in my mother-in-law's flock. Only she had caught and separated him from the meaner rooster.

I loved Daddy Chicken, but he was older and hobbled around. He did a fine job of taking care of the hens, and while the young roosters were small and scrawny, he was able to put them in their place. Red Bird and the older hens helped him a great deal with the young upstarts. Whenever one of them would get a little too cocky, you'd see one of the older girls, usually Red, come and give them a few good pecks. Eventually, though, they'd grow big and hardy, and some would probably grow to be mean.

It was the fourth of July, and I was going to run my first 10k. I had decided I would take care of six of the ornery red roosters. Again, one for each mile run. While the 10k was a great experience, it proved to be a horridly hot day. I managed to get through four birds before I gave up. They were small and tough, their feathers difficult to pluck. They weren't bred for easy processing like the Cornish Crosses.  

So I was stuck with the task of finding homes for the rest of them. The most aggressive went first to some of my dad's co-workers. I, of course, requested that they would either be breeding stock or food. I wasn't giving away my boys to become fighters, aggressive or not.

The more docile birds, a beautiful Silver Laced Wyandotte, and my two fluffy Silkie roosters were given a chance.  Only one proved to be aggressive at all;. Ironically my aggressive boy was the buff Silkie rooster. Luckily, being attacked by a fluffy bunny-looking chicken proved to be funnier than it was dangerous.

My son thought it was hilarious and we would tell him to go 'play tag' with the rooster he'd named Spunky Caca Butt. Matthew would walk up to the rooster and the fluffy brown thing, maybe a foot tall at the most, would run at him. Matthew would giggle and take off running. Sometimes the little bugger would get a peck in, so we learned to tell Matthew to make sure to wear jeans when he played tag with his fluffy friend.