Too BIG FOR THEIR BRITCHES!

This is the third in my series about all things chicken-y, especially roosters.  As I mentioned, I have owned four roosters.  Unlike the hens they didn't live out their days at my place, and they all went to that great hen house in the sky before their time. One of the reasons that roosters crow is to announce their presence, and to announce their dominion over their territory and their hens.

Something I've learned from the school of life, is that no matter what, DON'T mess with a man's ego or as the kids call it now, their "swagger" or "swag".  Most of us have it in one way or another, that ego, that sense of self confidence.  It seems to me that it is more important to men that they have a strong, healthy ego.  There is nothing more attractive than confidence in a man.  It is sexy, plain and simple.  Try to imagine John Wayne, Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp, or Robert Pattinson without their swagger.  Imagine them brow beaten and emasculated -- like a certain reality show husband with a lot of kids was a few years ago.  It is a sad, sad thing.  You may wonder why I am talking about this!?  I bring it up because there is no other animal that I have dealt with that has as much SWAG and EGO as the rooster.  The way they strut, and fluff their feathers and are always hyper vigilant is certain, consistent, comical and kinda lovable too.  There is a reason the word COCKY is what it is.  If you look up the definition of the word, it is:  "excessively proud of oneself: overconfident, arrogant, brash, swaggering, conceited, egotistical, cocksure, swollen-headed, vain, full of ones self" Those are the perfect words to describe roosters.  You can easily add in ornery and sneaky too!

Let's face it though, if you looked this good, you might be more than a little proud of yourself!  And prideful they are. Our first rooster, Elvis was a big mixed breed.  He was very tall, his head came up to my knee.  We had raised him from a peep, but once he "got down" with his bad self......no more Mr. Nice Guy.  Every time I, or my eldest daughter went in to feed them or gather eggs he started squawkin' and stalkin'!  You have to take them seriously because they have spurs. 

And they know how to use them!  You can have them "removed" but then how could they defend the honor of their ladies?  With Elvis, we devised our first "rooster stick"  It was a a piece of lath about 4 feet long.  Of course we never hit him with it, or poked him with it -- even though sorely provoked to do so.  We used it to herd him away from us, or the hens towards him, or to herd him into the hen house at night, or when we wanted to spend some quality time with the girls and feed them meal worms -- which they LOVED.  I only took my eye off him once, and DAD-GUM it -- he got me.  It was the day before Thanksgiving and I was distracted and in a hurry.  I didn't get my rooster stick and he spurred me right in the knee!  He left a hole and it hurt!  So if you see a rooster that looks like this, take heed.

You may wonder about my roosters early demises.  Elvis was beautiful and he took care of the chicken yard and we developed an uneasy detente over the years.  As he got older, I noticed that he developed the habit of flying to the top of the fence around his yard in order to taunt my cocker spaniels.  It was insane!  There were four of them and one of him, but that didn't phase him.  He would glare at them and crow as loud as he could.  They would go bonkers and bark and it only made him prouder of himself.  I should have known that it was a suicide mission between Elvis the Kamikaze rooster and the dogs -- but I was a novice.  One day while I was washing eggs in the kitchen the dogs started barking and he started crowing.  I looked out the kitchen window and shushed them, even telling old Elvis to scat.  Then it happened as if in slow motion.  He flew into the patio to attack the dogs!! I ran to come to his aid, and he tried to get me again!!  I got the dogs off of him and dumped him into the chicken yard, but alas the damage was done.  He was alive, but his comb and wattle were injured.  We cleaned him up and put him in a large dog crate with straw, water and food.  The next morning I was awakened by the silence.  He was still alive, but had lost his ability to crow and strut.  He sat there like a rooster with no mojo, a mere shadow of the once majestic bird named Elvis.  He lived one more day, and then died. I don't know what was injured more -- his physical self or his ego, but he taught me a lot.  About nature, and roosters, ego and about myself.  Next time I write about chickens, I will write about eggs, feed and whether you should let your small children around a rooster.  And as a teaser to that, look at this picture and start to form your own opinion!

This Buff Orpington Rooster is about the size of our Elvis!

Until then......oodles of toodles!

  

   

COCKA-DOODLE-DOOOOOOOO

That means "Good morning" in rooster.  I have owned four roosters in my lifetime, they were:  Elvis, Banty, Turkey Lurkey, and Big Red.  I never planned to own any of them. They were all in my chicken yard a result of mistaken chicken sexing. Meaning I bought, or ordered peeps that were "guaranteed" to be all females.  To be fair, it is a difficult,  tedious job and I am sure that there are a few that are misdiagnosed in that process.  And that is why, all four times it happened, I became the unwitting owner of a rooster. 

You may now say, "But I only want hens and don't want the aggravation of a noisy rooster."  And I will say, "Don't own chickens!"  Raising animals of any kind is not a convenience, it is a lot of work that takes dedication and Mick said it best in the line "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need."

I say this because owning a rooster teaches you a lot about relationships, and about yourself. You may wonder how you will know if you have unwittingly become the owner of a rooster.  It will happen when the "peeps" get to be between 3 1/2 and 5 months of age.  It is chicken puberty and when their voices really change from that cute little peep-peep, to more chicken-y vocalizations like clucking and crowing.  One day you may wake up to odd noises that sound a bit like a quiet, "a-hem" -- like a little chicken clearing its throat.  You might even hear it during the day.  The chicks will all be "feathered out" at this point and starting to look a little gawky.  If this sounds familiar, it should because it is the chicken equivalent of humans being 11 - 13, or the canine "puppy uglies" (to be discussed at a later date).  The chicks are beginning to "find themselves".  In the days to follow, the roosters will continue to make many strange sounds, that range from coughing to strangulation.  This is normal.  Think of them as rooster vocal exercises, because they are warming up for the performance of a lifetime -- that will last a lifetime.

By the time they are six months old, the young roosters will fully have their crow on!  Much to the chagrin of you and your neighbors if you/they aren't ready for it.  Once I realized that I owned a rooster, I went to my neighbors and asked if they minded. They all said no -- as long as they could eventually get some free eggs.  The neighbor closest to my chicken yard grew up in an area where chickens ran free in their yard.  He said he found their noises comforting.  Another was from an area of Hawaii where chickens are everywhere, so she was "down" with it too.  So I was on my way to learning about being not only a chicken owner, but a rooster owner too. Now for the more technical -- but still interesting information about rooster crowing and chicken communication:

Most birds sing in some form or another, and crowing is the 'singing' of the rooster. Roosters crow for many reasons including: reacting to a disturbance, reacting to almost any kind of sound (cars, people, other roosters, other animals, etc.), guarding their territory, feeling threatened, if a predator is 'trespassing' on their territory, or just communicating with other chickens.  Roosters and chickens are usually most active in the morning, that is when people notice more crowing. But they can and often do crow 24 hours a day. Roosters crow at daylight because the change from dark to light encourages crowing.  If roosters are kept in a coop that is dark and you turn on a light inside, they will crow when their environment is changed by the light coming on. Often nightlights, floodlights, or other artificial lighting will throw off the animals natural rhythm, and he will crow when it is not daylight/dawn yet (keep this in might if you have motion sensors on your lights).  Light also affects hens, they don't lay eggs at night.  Dawn and the crowing of the rooster activates that response.  Sadly a tactic used by commercial poultry farms is to brightly light the hen houses to get the hens to lay more eggs, it stresses them to produce more eggs.

Almost all animals have daily cycles of activity known as “circadian rhythms.” A rooster crows because he has an internal clock that helps him anticipate sunrise. That way he knows when to begin his daily hunt for food and defense of his territory.  If one rooster in the neighbor has an internal clock that’s set a little early, he can stimulate other roosters to crow early too. The rooster’s sunrise song is a way of establishing his territory. When a rooster crows, he’s sending a signal to other roosters that if they trespass, they’re asking for a fight. A rooster will often crow from a vantage point above his territory so he can make others more aware of his presence and so that his songs travel farther. That's why the rooster is so often portrayed in art and cartoons as being perched on the top of a barn a coop or a fence post.

This has been only an introduction to the vast amount of poultry trivia that exists in my brain.  So as not to overwhelm, I will stop now.  I hope you find this informative and educational.  Next time I will discuss Rooster Ego, being "too big for their britches" and egg laying. See you then!