As you may recall, I bought 3 'pullets' a couple three months back to replace the hens I had that either died or quit laying as often as they had been. My new pullets were Freedom Rangers, easily the biggest damned 10 week old chickens I had ever seen. Seriously, at 10 weeks, they were as big as my 2 year old Naked Necks which are pretty good sized birds.
After a couple weeks, one of my alleged pullets started crowing. I don't know if I was in denial or what, man, but I was really hoping it was just a lesbian hen, or maybe a hen that just identified as a rooster. So I named it Butch.
Then 2.5 started crowing too. When I went back to the inventory sheet from the place I bought them from, I saw that they had been listed as straight run (unsexed) instead of pullets, so I had 2 roosters for 3 hens and one giant pullet which is way too many, the recommended ratio being 1 rooster to 6 or 7 hens.
Then their sister died before she even laid a single egg. I figure her poor heart just gave out from being so big. I was back to 3 hens.
Shortly after the pullet died, we had a nice thunderstorm right at dusk and when I went to lock the birds up for the night, Butch was freaking out and waddled his fat ass out past me. I tried and tried to herd him back into the coop, but he wasn't cooperating. After about a half hour of trying to get him back in, I was worn out and it was too dark to see him any more, so I said "Fuck you, be coyote bait then."
Evidently he was because I never saw nor heard him crowing again. In a way, it was a blessing in disguise because like I said, I had too many roosters for my (now) three hens. I was ready to butcher one of them, but I didn't have a big enough pot to scald them for plucking- they're that big.
So, over the next couple months 2.5 gained control and established dominance over the 3 remaining older hens, doing his duty and keeping an eye on his bitches as they free ranged, always on the outskirts of his little flock. And the older he got, the more unfriendly he got towards me. He was giving me some serious stink-eye and would flare on me if I got too close to them. Hell, up until about a month ago I'd be in the shed getting their feed and grain and shit, and he'd wander in behind me and eat out of my hand. I thought we were BFFs, man.
Okay, check this shit out. Even though I'm originally from California, I'm not one of those folks that have to be friends with every animal I run across. I've never had an urge to pet a buffalo, I didn't try to get close to any of the badgers or bobcats or squirrels I saw up in the Sierras, and I leave fawns alone.
While I do get a kick out of friendly chickens, it's not a requirement for them to like me. If he doesn't want me to hand feed him any more, it ain't no big deal.
What I don't tolerate though, is being randomly attacked for absolutely no reason by anything and that's something that 2.5 has decided to start doing to me. At first it was only when I got between him and his hoes and I didn't have a problem with that - that's his fucking job, to protect the hens. These past couple of weeks though, he's been launching sneak attacks on me like a Jap prick and trying to spur me, and that pisses me off. It ain't like I'm provoking him somehow - seriously, just what do you have to do to piss a chicken off?
I mean, there's no real danger - yet. For one thing he's too damned fat to jump higher than my boot top, and I can hear him coming most of the time, plus his spurs haven't developed points on them yet. It's still startling though to be outside doing something and all of a sudden I've got this goddamned monster rooster trying to spur my ankle and biting and pecking the shit out of the back of my thigh. He pecks hard enough that one time when I was reaching for an egg when he was within reach, he nailed me on the back of my hand and drew blood.
I've kicked that sonofabitch off of me several times, I'm talking about launching his KFC ass through the air, and that silly fucker takes it as a challenge, flaring his hackles and wings, and prances towards me again all gangsta and shit screaming "Come at me bro!!! Come at me!!!" He'll do that 2 or 3 times until I either connect real good or that asshole dog Jack finally sees what happening and puts an end to that shit by charging at him full speed and sending him rolling. He doesn't bite him, just slams into him at 25 mph.
I'm don't know if 2.5 realizes he's about thaaaat close to the end of his lifespan. Even Lisa knows it. I came in yesterday morning and she says, "I didn't hear any gunfire. I take it 2.5 is still alive?"
"Yeah, but he's gonna be sore as hell for the next couple of days."
One of these days, he's going to catch me in a bad mood and my next post about him is going to be about the terminal effects of a 230 grain hollow point on a fat-ass rooster. Stay tuned.
