A Tale of Two Roosters

No, this is not a twisted version of a Dickens Classic.  That is just the title that stuck in my brain when I decided to update you on the progress of our two boys. 

I find Dickens a little annoying. 

Which makes it even more weird that this is the title that stuck in my head for this update.

I went through a time in my life, within the last 10 years, that I began to read every classic I could get my hands on.  Now, this was a huge surprise to my Part-Part Timer because she is an avid reader and had never really seen me pick up a book.  I had to explain to her that I had always loved to read, but as the Mother of two daughters,  I had to take about a 16 year vacation from that hobby.  I know young mothers now that are envious of myself, and others like me, that actually get to enjoy spending time with a good book.  I am always quick to point out to them that it is an earned right and privilege, only gained by surviving the formidable years.  I don't really see how one could be an avid reader and raise children, unless you give up sleep and that was never an option for me.

My first adult experience with Dickens was with a little classic known as Bleak House.  This book is well over 900 pages and Charles spends the first 499 of them building his characters.  Now, I try to finish what I start, but he really tested me with this one.  I found myself irritated every time I picked it up.  Then, somewhere in the middle, he manages to throw a little drama in there to hook you, and somehow it all comes together and you can't put it down.  I found myself forgiving him for all the terrible things that I said about him, and I decided to try another.  I read A Tale of Two Cities.  It sort of had the same effect on me, but without being over 900 pages.  I had all of the same negative feelings toward him, and then, somewhere in the middle, he brought it all together and had me hooked again.

Now, there is only one man in my life that I allow to play with my emotions this way, and while I think he is the greatest man I know, he is not dead, and he is not Charles Dickens.

That is all I am going to say about that.

Back to the roosters.  Nobody wants roosters, and nobody, I mean nobody, wants to pay for roosters.  I would venture that most roosters get eaten.  I do have some advantages in my world when it comes to getting rid of roosters.  As I have explained before, we live outside the city limits of a two-horse town, and very near the city limits of a one-horse town.  Well, in that one-horse town, we have a pretty nice feed store and we are friends with the owners.  I have a great respect for people that run their own business these days.  It just says something if you are willing to put it out there and give it all you have.  But one of the problems with doing it, is that you are married to it.  That is where my advantage comes in.  We fill in at the feed store when the owners go out of town or have some event that they want to attend, like their son's football games or power lifting meets. 

It is much easier to try to advertise your roosters if...

1.  They are sitting on the front step of the feed store.
2.  You can pitch them to each person buying chicken feed.

Most of the time you will hear...

"I have an old rooster."
"Roosters are useless."
"I was attacked by my last rooster, and he didn't make it."
"I've got two roosters that I am trying to get rid of."

This list could go on and on, but the good news is that I found them both homes. 

One rooster went to live on the other side of the county with a flock of rooster-less hens.  He really had a nice trip, too.  A man and wife were buying hay, and started asking about both of my roosters.  They didn't have chickens, but a friend of theirs had a flock.  They called and she said that she would take one.  So, I went to grab a box, and the man asked if he should cut holes in the box so the rooster could get air on their journey?  "Sure," I said, and handed it to him while I retrieved the bird.  Well, he cut some nice size holes in that box.  Let's just say that they were big enough for a rooster to stick his head out of.  I put the little guy in the box, and taped it shut, putting an extra piece of tape on in case he got unruly.  I told the man that I would hate for him to be flying out of the box going down the road.  At which point the man looked at me, and said, "Oh, no.  We won't put him in the back of the truck.  We will put him in the back seat."  Again, noticing the size of the air holes cut in this box, I was just like, "Okay," as they jumped into a very nice, very new Ford F350-King Ranch Edition-$47,000.00 truck.

How many miles do you think they made it before Mr. Rooster made his presence known on that nice leather back seat?

On a completely different day at the feed store, again, working to fill in for the owners, we got rid of the other one.  I felt like he was the better looking of the two, and if I was going to have a rooster it would have been him.  Well, we went about our day as usual, pitching him to anyone buying chicken feed when a man and his son came in.  They were buying chicken feed and I went into my little sales pitch, but they already had a rooster and 12 hens.  They were nice though, and they looked at him and we discussed what a fine bird he was.  I explained that one day, when I grow up, I would like to have a breeding flock, but not today.  I added that when that day comes, he would be the type of bird to have, and that I would probably be interested in breeding show chickens.  Well, we talked about all of the possibilities of such a venture and then they went on their way.    

Well in the middle of all the afternoon chaos that ensued that day, they came back.  I was out back on the Fork Lift loading some feed and the man approached me and asked me if I was still interested in giving my rooster away.  After a few minutes of conversation, he explained that he and his son had gone home, divided their chicken coop and their chicken yard and had separated their hens. 

They are now in the breeder business. 

I hope it has worked out well for both of the boys.  I did think about them once last week, hoping that they were warm and settled among their new girlfriends.  Then I quickly pushed that out of my head.  I can't really afford to spend time going there.

The good news is that we now have 29 hens.  We went the long way to get to the original 30 hens that I was after.