A new home for rooster

As our little black chicken got bigger and bigger and looking more and more roosterlike, we had to start considering what we were going to do with him.

It was time to stop kidding myself that it was just an “early developer” and admit that we really did have a rooster on our hands. He was starting to get aggressive with the hens and even with us as we went out to feed them. And while I hated getting rid of one of those chicks that we had been raising for the past 3 months, we really didn’t want a rooster.

I decided to put an ad for a rooster online, and see if there were any takers. I was really hoping that someone would WANT a rooster, and not just for dinner. I soon got an email that said,
“We’ll take it if you want to bring it over to us. We don’t need it, but we have plenty of room in our flock if you need a home for it.”
Flock! That sounds better than Freezer! And the address was quite close to us. So, before our first baseball game of the night, we loaded up our little Oreo face and took him over to his new home.

That box held all five of those chicks when we first got them, and now it could barely hold this one!

We drove over to the address, and I told the kids, “If I don’t see or hear any signs of chickens, I’m not leaving him there.”

But as we got farther down the street, we saw horses and even heard a cock-a-doodle-doo as we pulled up to the house. That’s a good sign! There was no answer at the door, but then the guy I had been emailing drove up. “Oh, that’s a beautiful rooster,” he said. He Took Oreo and asked if we wanted to see the chicken area. What a nice man! He led us through the back yard to a field, and there were about 6 hens and a couple of roosters out there, just happy to be pecking around. Oreo, when confronted with other roosters, had to immediately prove he was manly, and the squabbling began. “He’s bigger than our other roosters,” he said, “He might just end up being the one in charge around here.” Oh, that would certainly make him happy. They let their hens go broody, too, so he was pleased at the prospect of ending up with some black chicks (maybe I could get some chicks back from him someday. Some female chicks, that is.)

I felt very happy to be sending him off to such a great home!

Now we have only 6 hens. Three that are a year old, and these three that we got as chicks in Feb. Six is a good number for us right now, and we are happy to send Oreo off to his new happy home.