Living near a good sized city, Toledo, Ohio, and then being involved in a big homesteading group as well as an urban chicken keeper’s group, it just seems to happen now and then… someone ends up with a rooster from a batch of “hens” that they raised from chicks. Even the big chick dealers get messed up now and then and are not 100% successful at sexing chickens.
It’s fine, we love roosters, here. At least I do! I think they are beautiful and when we can, we open our doors to roosters that need a home.
We don’t promise them a super duper long life in captivity… we just have found that too many cooped roos makes for very difficult lives. So they free range here. We have 5 outbuildings that they can get into, and they do. And they have three acres to range about and get fed and watered… actually, I think they really enjoy it! Bugs, food, interesting activity and the occasional lady hen to entertain!
Sure, now and then, someone goes missing. I suspect now and then, they just go and find a new home. A harsh winter can claim one or two. Of course, they might have ended up as some varmit’s dinner. However, roosters usually put up quite a fight and leave a lot of feathers behind and we haven’t seen that in a long time. I do know that sometimes the old ones just go off and lay down somewhere to pass on. That’s okay. I know they had a very happy time here.
We got two new residents this summer. A beautiful Buff Orpingham young boy that was Lucy and is now Luke… and a fancy little fellow that we call Kid Rock. His name was just Kid… but we thought it was kind of funny to add the Rock at the end. (Yeah, not totally sure why, but hey, it’s stuck now.)
What’s nice is that they are both young and both came at the same time, so they are pretty bonded. They watch each other’s backs against the older roosters. Most of my roos are French Copper Marans, or at least half breeds that we raised here and are super calm and sweethearts. We don’t tolerate mean roosters here. But, if a youngster tries to be a little too brazen, the older roos will put him in his place pretty quickly.
So, as a result, there is peace and harmony here at the homestead.
And about seven roosters!
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