Seven Roosters Crowing
- September 29, 2010
- Category: Daily Diary
- (23) Comments
This post contains a small amount of graphic material. Be forewarned but if you decide to read all of it, I hope you’ll share your thoughts.
Last week, I received a wonderful birthday surprise in the mail; a gift from Karen and Gerard Zemek. Not only did the beautifully wrapped box contain my favorite penny candies and a beautiful card, it also contained this plaque
I LOVE it. Thank you Karen and Gerard.
One thing that ruffles my feathers is the rooster dilemma. Last winter, when I started thinking about adding poultry, I perused all the catalogs from various hatcheries. Mountain Man’s words echoed through my mind, “No roosters.” And I discovered it is possible to order all hens instead of a “straight run” that contains unsexed baby chicks. But I ended up ordering a straight run. Why?
Prior to placing my order, I was reading our local paper and found an article about the growing movement towards owning backyard chickens and the fact that this demand was creating an unprecedented interest in people ordering hens thereby creating a surplus of baby boys. And the baby boys aren’t worth anything. Some are shipped as extras in small orders for additional body heat to help the chicks stay warm during transport but the majority are dumped into a blender and chopped to death alive. Here’s a link for anyone interested in learning more.
Chopped alive in a blender. I gagged at the thought of it. I didn’t want to contribute to that happening so I discussed it with Mountain Man and we agreed to order a straight run. I held my breath as the chicks started to grow. One rooster emerged early on. Okay, no problem. I can keep one rooster. No big deal.
Until last week. We were eating breakfast with the windows wide open when we heard crowing and then more crowing and then even more. Coming from different directions.
“Did you hear that?” my anti-rooster Mountain Man asked.
“Hear what?”
“Roosters, lots of roosters. We’re surrounded by roosters.”
“What did you say?” I pulled my middle aged lady hard of hearing routine. “I don’t hear any roosters.”
“Maybe you need a hearing aid.”
“What did you say?” Whew, problem solved for the moment. Until. . .
We headed out to do chores and our free ranging birds caught sight of us and came running. And not only did they come running, they were singing at the top of their lungs. COCK A DOODLE DOO.
“Okay, I know you heard that.”
Hmm, let me think fast on my feet. “Yes, I heard it but it’s not so many.”
“Are you crazy? There’s a bunch of roosters crowing.” Mountain Man stopped to count. “Seven of them. You have seven roosters. You can’t have that many roosters. Once winter comes and they aren’t running around, they’ll start fighting. They have to go.”
I checked into Craig’s List where it seems as though everyone has my problem. Pages upon pages of free roosters.
Oh, what to do?
“How are you doing with getting rid of those roosters?”
“Not so good.” I reply.
“Well, that’s 14 rooster legs for dinner then.”
So readers what do you think? Is it better to be ground up alive in a blender after birth or is it better to have a great home for a few months free ranging and enjoying life before you become someone’s dinner?
And as for our roosters. Well, I knew Mountain Man was kidding about the rooster legs. He’s decided to build bachelor quarters and separate my boys this winter until they can free range again in the spring. And as he goes about his day with Lilly, our working German shepherd by his side, he tells her “Don’t bother Mommy’s birds. They are part of her zoo.” Boy, do I ever have a wonderful Mountain Man.
I wonder if they will fight amongst themselves.
You have given them a happy life, sometimes it needs to be cut short. I think God does provide us with food. It’s a hard decision. were lucky to only have 2 roosters out of 10 but they still fought. :O)
Date: September 29, 2010
My roosters never fought each other but as they aged they started attacking us. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything with them or to them. Finally, the last rooster became a meal for an owl. The circle of life…and I didn’t have anything to do with it. Whew. LOVE the last photo of the chicken – what a beautiful bird!
Date: September 29, 2010
Since all my rooster knowledge comes from your blog, I have no idea how I would handle having too many roosters. I guess it’s best that we stick on one dog here!
Date: September 29, 2010
That is quite a dilemma. After raising them from tiny little chicks it would be too easy to get attached to them.
Just seems like there should be a gentler way to get rid of the excess male chickens, like euthanasia, wonder what sadistic thought up such a ghoulish means of eradicating the tiny chicks, I shiver thinking about it.
Well your roosters are the lucky ones. If they do eventually end up being Sunday’s fried chicken dinner at least they’ve been able to live the way they had been created to live.
Date: September 29, 2010
I read this just after devouring a Lean Cuisine Sweet and Sour Chicken entree. It certainly left the SOUR part in my mouth.
I prefer to think of my chicken all wrapped up in cellophane in the grocer’s refrigerated case, thank you. Hypocrite, that I am.
Nasty dilemma. First, I congratulate you on your “saving” the tiny baby roosters. Death by blender is too horrific to fathom. So in my opinion, Sunday Dinner Rooster would be the more humane. At least they got to live a free range New Hampshire summer, and what could be better than that?
I don’t remember if I’d already told you – my new job at the post office is at the Priority Mail Annex – all we do is carry packages from point A to point B all night long. Well, one thing that is shipped in our building is CHICKENS. Yes, almost every night, we hear the little peep peep peep of baby chicks all over the building. It’s at once cute and repulsive, especially if you happen to have brought Kentucky Fried Chicken for supper. The chicks are all shoved into those flat boxes with holes on the side; shoved in like sardines, and we often wonder if they have water in there.
But the hardest nights are when we have live roosters shipped. They come in large boxes, vented, but not enough for the birds to see out, and they crow all night long. Poor things, at least the baby chicks don’t know any other life, but these are full grown roosters, cooped in a box sitting in a post office for I-don’t-know-how-long, then riding in a huge mail truck for hours or maybe even a couple of days.
I was asked last week if I’d like to learn how to do Express Mail, which is what the birds are, but I said no – I’d be fired the first night, coz I’d free all those birds!
?Like a free bird, yeah!?
Date: September 29, 2010
Hmmm…I typed in musical notes, but they showed up question marks. Just use your imagination.
Date: September 29, 2010
My roosters turned mean as well, my two German Sheppards would stay behind me (cowards) when we would walk to the barn. I only had a couple of fights with mine then they new better, but my kids and my wife could no longer gather eggs because of them. Out of 22 on only wound up with 3 roosters and all of them are gone now (wife swears she had nothing to do with it) so the kids once again collect eggs. Every time we had chicken my daughther would as if that is Rudy, when I’d say no she would act disappointed.
Tim
Date: September 29, 2010
I’m a city gal, so the only thing I will say it’s that I love that plaque.
Well about the roosters, bah!?
Date: September 29, 2010
Well I hope they won’t start fighting. It will be beautiful to see them running outside together with all those gorgeous colors! Maybe if you keep singing for them and tell them sweet stories all winter they will become friends
Date: September 29, 2010
Unless there are ladies present I would not think they would fight. But with roosters one never knows. They are very aggressive and can become very mean. I’m like you I can’t stand the blender thing, nor can I do the chicken in the pan thing. I gave all mine away.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Date: September 29, 2010
Oh my! That’s a lotta roos!
We have two (accidentally – because the hatchery sent another roo as our extra freebie), however had I researched the rooster issue as thoroughly as you did, we might have ended up with more also. Maybe the bachelor pad will work out ok? My 2 boys get along famously so far. And we’re going on 5 months. Good luck!
Date: September 29, 2010
I have wondered the same thing and what people do with the roosters they get from straight run batches. I only have one rooster at the moment, but have thought about getting a batch of straight run next year rather than just pullets. I do think that our one rooster, Fowler, has kept the foxes at bay and has protected our little flock – either that or our turkey, June, has.
I do enjoy hearing Fowler throughout the day and our little flock would be missing something if it weren’t for him. However, he is a bantam, and at all of 5 inches tall he doesn’t cause any of us much harm when he tries to attack us. Seven full grown regular roosters would be another story! Ouch!!
It’s a tough call!!
Date: September 29, 2010
You are a very kind person to order straight run to save those roosters. All the extra roosters is a problem. It is too bad they can’t just give the chickens something so they would only have female offspring. I hope they will all get along OK and can live out their little rooster lives but if it came down to it I DO think living a happy life (even a short one) and being killed quickly and humanely MUCH beats being thrown into a blender as a baby!
Date: September 29, 2010
I love fried chicken. Send them to me.
Date: September 29, 2010
Being ground up in a blender sounds very cruel to me. If I were a rooster, I’d definitely like to have a few months to grow and roam and if I became someone’s dinner, then so be it. My purpose in life would have been fulfilled. Glad you liked the plaque!
I think it would be great to be waken with a cock-a-doodle-doo! Yea for Mountain Man letting the roosters stay!
Date: September 30, 2010
What a tale. I do know my aunt and uncle had seven of the meanest roosters on their farm. Whenever we would go to gather eggs, they would chase us, pecking away. It got so bad that, for seven weeks in a row, a rooster was Sunday dinner. Life was much more pleasant in the barnyard after that.
Date: October 01, 2010
i’ve found since living here in mt… there’s nothing quite like the spirit and serenity that g-d’s creatures and their antics will bring to your life
be blessed
gp
Date: October 02, 2010
I have no say because I don’t have a farm and I don’t experience this sort of thing in the city.
I recently had some similar ethical struggles recently when I had a gang of rogue raccoons ransack my yard and pond. I’m all about everyone living in harmony until they decapitated a rabbit in the yard. Then they ate my fish (which was fine), but then they started tearing up the pond, waterfall, and the liner. Being that this started ringing up financially and I feared for the safety of the cats and us, these guys had to go.
We paid to have them trapped because it is against the law here in the city. Part of the agreement in this process is that they are labeled “nuisance animals” and they had to be destroyed. Yeah, this bothered me a LOT. I actually cried. But I would look each trapped animal in the eye to realize what I was doing to them, and to make peace with that.
That said, in the few weeks that it took to catch this gang, I would relocate the trapped animals into the shed if it was raining. They were NOT going to suffer on my shift. I am quite the contradiction, aren’t I?
So, I’d say let the roosters be until they got rough. Then, if and when somebody crossed the line of safety, they would be dinner. But just don’t ask me to “prepare” dinner that night, okay?
Date: October 03, 2010
Whoops! I said New Hampshire; forgot for a moment that you’re in Vermont!
Date: October 03, 2010
That is a Tough one to decide on.
If MM could handle it…I think a dinner , every so often, would be nice…his solution is very peacable for now, though!
I would have to cross that bridge when we got there too…as I have never had chickens. The thought of them being blenderised is just plain gross and volitile to me though!And what the hay do they do with that stuff? I can’t bear to read about the link you put there!
Kac
Date: October 06, 2010
In a blender – that is so sick in so many ways. How can people be so cruel?
Date: October 06, 2010
I know what your going thru, as i write this, I’am wiping away the tears. Good Friday of this year, my grandson Camden, picked out 30 baby chickens from the co-op , in the town where we live, every year on good friday they have chick day. I told the girl, that I only wanted 1 ROOSTER, she said with that many hens you will need at least 2, I said o.k. Several months later, guess what, we discover we have 4 rooster’s, its funny what a child see’s, but my little grandson Camden who’s 4, named all 4 rooster’s. The main one, the ruler, he named RJ, after my husband, who’s name is Robert James, my husband and RJ, look so much alike, he’s a Easter Egger Rooster, he is gray with black that wraps around his neck, just like my husband’s gray and black beard on his face, this there’s ANDY, he is a Buff Orpington, beautiful gold with a big red Crown that stands straight up, then there’s COTTON, who is a Araucan Rooster, all white like a cotton ball, but with a red rose comb, and last but not least there’s PICKLES, he is a Easter Egger Rooster, he could pass for RJ’s twin, but he is more gray with a mix of black, just like a jar of pickles. They would’nt leave the girl’s alone, to the point when my husband said some of them would have to go, several days later were building a second coop onto the back of the first one that we have never finished, that would be the boys place, and they would be able to get out into the fenced area when it got put up, until then we just let them run loose, they loved it every time I would look out the window I would see them having such fun in the back yard. Friday a week ago, I had a dr’s appt, and then picked up my grandson to head home, I kept telling him we had to hurry up, I just felt like something was’nt right at home, we pulled up, and I did’nt see it at first, because the neighbor dogs, yes DOGS, she promised she would keep locked up were chasing COTTON and PICKLES, I got out of the car run up onto the porch and grabed the bb gun and started shooting, and they ran off, I turned around to see all the feather’s on the ground, I started calling RJ and ANDY, but they would’nt come then I could see all the feathers EVERYWHERE, they even went all the way to my neighbors property, and everywhere in there yard, but no RJ and ANDY, I never knew I could cry so much, but now when I go outside its just not the same, I still have COTTON and PICKLES, I have put them back in with the girl’s, until the fence get’s up, but I just could’nt take it anymore, every day watching them, it is just too SAD, they look and act like they dont know where there at, they walk so slow around that run with the girls in it, and then they would just lay down on the ground, the look in there eye’s, was just such sadnest, its been almost a week, since my neighbor’s DOGS, killed and ate my RJ and ANDY, I cant believe those little chicks that my grandson picked out on good friday, who were only 3 days old are now gone, they only got to live 7 month’s, I know my little farm we never be the same, I picked up all the FEATHER’s that I could find and put into a ziplock bag, RJ’s in one and ANDY’s in one, marked them with there names and date of birth and death, and put them into the COOP with the girls, I taped them onto the wall, on the side where they always liked to roost, always together, I do think in my heart that the girl’s know they are there, I’am always reading about other peoples tradegy’s, always trying to be so careful that it would’nt happen to me, but it did, right now my heart hurts too bad, but one day I would like to try with PICKLES and one of the easter egger girl’s, to have another RJ, but I dont know about ANDY, he was a real Buff Orpington Rooster, and I dont have any of those, I do have Buff girls thou, I dont know how, I would get another from what I’ve got, I’am blessed to have what I have, already.
Date: October 06, 2010
Hello Mountain Woman!
This spring we ordered 63 chicks from a hatchery. Some were for for laying hens but the majority were for the freezer so most of them were ‘straight run’. We ended up with around 20 roosters. Keeping yours seperate from the hens is a good idea as our roosters ‘terrorized’ the poor hens. Some of the poor girls escaped by flying over our fence and then unfortunately some of them were caught by our large young dog. When it was time we took them to a family who humanely butchered them. I didn’t think I could watch but it was very calm and fast. The birds didn’t suffer at all. I feel good about the life we gave them even though it was short….they had a place to free range and a cozy place to perch for the night for the length of their life. Now they are in our freezer. Loved your post..made me laugh. Good luck with your roosters!
Maura
Date: October 06, 2010