Cat & Rooster Games

I’ve mentioned on here before that the last time one of our hens hatched eggs, it was just three roosters . . no girl chickens! You really can’t have more than one rooster unless you have 20+ hens because . . well, they’re men chickens and they have one thing on their mind. Really . . they never stop.

Our baby chicks can always get through our fence and they run around and play outside the fence but keep a close watch on “mama” and always go back in at night but these three roosters decided they wanted to be free and have nothing to do with going inside the fence or the coop at night. They grew up and got too big to get back in the fence but they were happy being outside the fence. I figured they wouldn’t last long but, they’re all three still here. Two seem fairly well behaved but one is just a monster. I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me.

I named him Rocky because he’s always looking for a fight. He struts around the yard . . he’ll make 25 or more circles around the house during the day. We’ll be sitting here and see him strutting past the windows.

Wilbur is the rooster that lives in the orchard with about 20 hens. He is the best rooster. He will walk up to me and I can rub him on his head. He is gentle with the hens. When I throw treats to them, he stands back til they’ve all gotten what they want, then he gets what’s left. He keeps a good eye on the sky, looking for danger and alerting the hens if he sees a hawk or anything scary. He sounds a warning and they all know to run for cover, either under the coop or under a clump of brush where they feel safe.

Rocky has been spending most of his days at the fence aggravating Wilbur. I told Vince . . Rocky needs to go because he’s distracting Wilbur, who’s spending all his time at the fence arguing with Rocky and Wilbur isn’t patrolling to keep the hens safe!

Rocky also hangs out under the fig tree, which may be another reason we didn’t get many figs this year.

The same day I asked Vince about getting rid of Rocky, Vince came in and he was aggravated. He said “Rocky just chased Cat into the woods!” He said Cat was walking across the driveway, Rocky came up, Cat saw him and started to run and Rocky started chasing her. Vince said “It’s obviously happened before!” so he was all set to get rid of Rocky. Then next day Vince came in and said “Cat is hanging out under the fig tree!” I said “Wait . . that’s where Rocky stays. She’s taunting him! Maybe they are friends and that’s their way of playing.”

Who knows what’s going on with those two? We’ll keep a watch and see how things go and make sure Rocky isn’t really scaring Cat but he does have to leave Wilbur alone and let him do his job!