I thought I would introduce you all to the roosters that we have currently here at our little homestead. Unfortunately, this last brutal winter led to the death of our beloved Bucka Roo. He was our foundation rooster and our beloved spokesroo of the farm. He fathered so many lovely chicks that now live all over the area! He’s famous! And thank goodness, we have several of his handsome sons still with us!
The oldest of our roos is Copper. He is pictured above. His mother was Eleanor, one of our original hens, bless her little heart. She was a Rhode Island Red and just the most personable hen around! She took to us right away and was a sweetheart. She passed away in her sleep this harsh winter. Cooper was the very first chicken we ever hatched, from a homemade incubator in a Styrofoam cooler with just a regular old lightbulb. We call him a French Red Marans. (gg)
This is Bucka Too…. He really looks a lot like his father. He had a Marans mother, Susanne, and he was born about two years ago this summer. He will be working with all our new Marans hens to produce the next couple generations of Windhaven purebred Marans. He is quite the ladies man and is very good with his hens.
This is Dammartin. He is a French Wheaton Marans, with blue highlights. He was raised by our friend Izzy for us. She is a young lady that is a whiz with raising nice birds for us. Her hens came from our farm and every so often one will go broody. So we rush over a handful of eggs and once they hatch, Izzy takes over and raises them. He had another name for awhile, but I’m sorry, I forgot it! I think it was Martha for awhile… We were all hoping that he was a she!
He’s kind of a lone wolf, low roo on the totem pole around here. He ranges about at the fringes, helpng to keep an eye out for hawks and such, but not getting too much lady time… Such is the way when you have several free ranging roos!
Now, these last two fellows are my special new boys. They are from new lines of feather footed Marans and I have some high hopes for them. This is Renault, a lovely Black Copper Marans… He is only six months old, but already, he is quite the handsome devil! He was supposed to go to a friend’s farm but he just didn’t settle in there well and he came back to his homeplace. He is hanging with his brother, Cunalt, a Blue Copper Maran and are the protectors of their seven sister hens. Our plan is to remove Cunalt and Renault for a few weeks, and replace them with Bucka Too when the new girls start laying full sized eggs. They just started this week laying little wee pullet eggs! How cool! But its best to give them a few weeks to lay a more mature egg before we select some for incubation.
If you try and hatch pullet eggs, you will often encounter low fertility as well as stunted chicks. The egg space is much smaller and it just is not the best thing. We’ll wait and see how the size of the eggs progress and when we start to see a much more uniform large egg, we will switch out the roosters for better bloodlines and then start to collect a few weeks after.
I’ve always wanted a lovely flock of purebred Marans and I finally have one! Yeah!
This is Cunault… he is Renault’s brother! I hope he gets his lovely copper mantle soon, but he’s only 6 months old and that can take time. He’s a lovely blue boy and I just adore his blue feathered feet! He’s a real sweety and the girls love him. I can’t wait to see how nicely he matures!
Last but not least is Raven. Raven is the second oldest rooster here on the farm. He is a Maranacuna… our made up breed of crossbred Marans with an Amerucana hen! He is just beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful of our roos. Our friend Trini and her family raised him from a chick and then discovered, he was not a she. He had to come back to the fold. He has the most beautiful iridescent feathers! And little side muffs on his cheeks. A teeny little rose comb completes the look. I wish I could get a handful of Amerucana hens and start breeding the two together in hopes of getting more like Raven! He’s beautiful!!! He lives with the pigs and is not interested in perusing the ladies anymore. He likes his hog friends better.
Rather, I think he loves their sloppy eating habits better.
We love our roosters here at the Windhaven Rooster Sanctuary! (that is our fun name for all the roosters that come back from urban homes!) We’ve rehomed a few that were not getting along with the gang, after all, having anywhere from 6 to 8 free rangings roosters can be a challenge. But really, since all our birds are either Marans, or cross breeds, they seem gentle and very easy to get along with. We absolutely adore our Marans… I recommend them if you wish to have multiple roos and free ranging without difficulty or attack! We don’t tolerate mean animals around here… if you can’t get along, then you get moving along! It just has to be that way. One mean animal can just through everyone else off. And it’s just not fun dealing with a nasty rooster! Thank goodness, we’ve only had one or two! And they just did not last long before they were packing their bags and heading out for someone that can tolerate them!
We love our friendly and cuddly boys!!!
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