Author: Anna & Mark

Our current
rooster is the
best one we’ve ever had.  He didn’t succumb to spring
hormones and start chasing
me, he doesn’t overmate
his hens, but
he does get the job done.  I originally chose him on the
basis of intelligence — he was often the first to figure out the
pophole when moving to a new pasture — and he’s definitely lived
up to that potential for aiding in pasture rotation.  Yet,
while I’d like to keep 2012/2013 Rooster forever, we’ll need a
virile young cock to ensure our eggs hatch next year, so one of
his sons is slated to become the flock’s patriarch this
fall.  But who?



I suspect that most
people simply pick their prettiest rooster, but I’m well aware
that a rooster is going to provide 50% of the genetic material for
next year’s flock.  Plus, his behavior will determine whether
predators eat our hens and whether I’m afraid to walk into the
pasture.  So it seems worth thinking a bit harder about which
cockerel to keep.

Two of our young
cockerels are currently harassing our pullets to the point they’re
afraid to hang out with the flock — those guys are definitely
going in the pot.  At the other extreme, the rooster pictured
above seems to play well with others, and his mother was clearly a
Rhode Island Red hen (a breed that produces the best layers in our
flock).  I want to work harder to increase the laying
abilities of our chickens, so I suspect this speckled rooster
might be a good choice for our keeper.



Plus, he’s the
prettiest cockerel by far….

I’ll start this post
by jumping right to the punch line and telling you how I —
nature girl, friend of all things that creep, crawl, and slither
— threw my shoe at a perfectly harmless black rat snake. 
It was a cute snake too, didn’t startle me in the least, but my
intent was to cause harm…or at least to get that reptile out of
my barn.



Remember how I told
you that our
broody hen lost one of her chicks a few days after they hatched? 
I heard a ruckus, ran into the barn, and found our eight-chick
flock down to seven.



Well, I was hanging
out with the broody hen and her chicks a few days later, when she
started acting oddly.  Mama Hen called all her chicks to her
side and backed away from the wall, her feathers puffing up. 
Then in crawled a black rat snake, making a beeline for those
tasty morsels.

I knew at once that
this snake had been the murderer of chick number eight, and I was
bound and determined not to let it happen again on my watch. 
I couldn’t actually walk toward the snake because it was on the
other side of the hen, and I was afraid that if I made any sudden
moves, the hen would figure the snake was the least of her worries
and lead her chicks into harm’s way.  So off came my shoe.



The footware landed
directly on the snake’s head, but, unfortunately, it was really
just a slipper and barely phased the chick-hunter.  He did
try to strike the shoe, though, which pushed Mama Hen over the
edge from defensive to offensive.  She flew at the snake, and
the snake hit the road.


I’d like to say the
episode talked me into moving our smallest flock to a more secure
location, but it didn’t.  The dangers of trying to gather up
seven chicks in a cluttered barn without losing any seemed to
outweigh the benefits of the move, so I left them alone, and Mama
Hen does seem to have been fending off all future snake
attacks.  I wonder if the predator that used to pick off our
chicks before we secured their brooder was actually a snake, not a
rat?