hellooo, ladies

Cock-a-doodle-doodle-doo-ster

You're our one and only rooster

If the hens had only knew, Sir

They'd have practiced shoo-a-shoo-ster

You'll take any hen to do-ster

Even though you're nothin' to her

They might wish for someone tru-er

But that's the nature of a rooster

We got ourselves a rooster last week! A friend had three, and begged us to take one off of his hands...for $6, so maybe it wasn't a total beg. Evidently, his hen to rooster ratio was too small, so the roosters weren't acting kindly toward one another. We got the trouble maker of his batch, whom J has named Six Dolla' Roo. We introduced him to the ladies at dusk when everybody was roosting, and we watched in the shadows for any drama. There wasn't much. The hens pecked at his bright red waddles and combs, an anomoly in their otherwise black-and-whiteness, and he explored the coop slowly, making small hesitant vocalizations. We left after 10 minutes, because nobody seemed too concerned with each other. Well, Jason peeked in about 3 minutes later, and who was on the top roost, with three hens on either side of him, and all the rest of the hens relegated to the bottom roost? You guessed it. Old Sixey.

looking the new guy over and cackling amongst themselves

Old Sixey might be my name for him, a blend between the fact that he was $6, is old compared to the hens (he's a year, and they're like three months), and that he's supposed to be sexy. Reminds me of this Jack Handy deep thought:
*

For a while there, instead of calling Grandpa "Grandpa," I started calling him "Grandpappy." But he didn't like that, and asked me to go back to Grandpa. So I did, but I changed it a little. I put an "e" in instead of an "a," so it became "Grendpa." At first he didn't notice, but then he said, "What did you call me?" "Grandpa," I said. But then I went back to calling him Grendpa. Finally he just said to go ahead and call him Grandpappy, which I did, only I changed it a little bit to "Grendpeppy."
*
Today, a bunch of us sat out on the lawn, watching how the dogs would respond to the chickens free ranging. They are behaving themselves, so we left the chickens out for the afternoon and evening. Near dark, Jason went out to see how Six Dolla' Roo had done in rounding the hens up into the coop. That's one of a rooster's main jobs, see. He was inside alright, settled in for the night on the top roost, with five hens. The other five were huddled together near our back porch, apparently waiting for Jason to come out and lead them home. Old Sixey better get it together. Jason figures he's so un-used to being top guy on the totem pole that he thinks having five hens is good enough.


If nothing else, I've got to say he is a quite stunning addition to the flock. He's huge compared to the hens, and it keeps surprising me how perfectly he MATCHES them. They are the same breed, so I don't know what I expected. It's like we special ordered a water pitcher to go with our dinnerware, and they all look perfect together.

Old Sixey and the coming storm