The rooster that was

You may remember the chicks we watched back in August, especially the one that turned out to be a rooster. It looks like I never really talked about him again, but we moved him into the chicken coop in his own sort of isolation coop under the main hen house. After several failed attempts at integrating the flock, we realized his life would be in peril if he were to be left alone with our flock of blood thirsty girls. "No boys allowed in this house!"

He had a pretty happy life, got the choice scraps all to himself, and we let him out in the yard when the girls went out. He was terrified of them though, and if one approached him he would flip out and fly halfway across the yard to escape. He was quite a handsome young guy.





Around September or so he started crowing. It was delightful actually. He generally only crowed from 7am to 8am and then was quiet the rest of the day. One morning we woke to dueling roosters: the rooster down the street would crow, then ours would, then the one down the street. It was hysterical!





The first video was taken by Jeremy, and the rooster had no problem crowing for him. The second video was taken by me. I had to film far away because every time I got close to the coop, he zipped his beak and refused to crow!

But then of course, the fateful day came.



It was starting to get cold outside for our ward, integration wasn't going to happen, and we hadn't planned to keep him anyway. So one day when I was at work my husband (plus his intern, two neighbors, and another curious friend or two!) did the deed.

And boy was he tasty!



It was a good experiment because our neighbors enjoyed having him around. So if we get roosters in the next batch we won't feel so bad about keeping them around. But I guess in the end that depends on how much they crow. Our neighbors' rooster crowed every time someone walked by the house - so he eventually had to move out to a farm because there were too many complaints. It would be nice to have a rooster on the block again though!