Oops, we did it again

Well, we did it again. We rolled the dice on a new batch of chicks and we ended up with three little hens... and a rooster. Oy. This one is a barred rock rooster named Lilly. Had he been a she it would have worked out well because then we would have Lucy and Lilly, two barred rock hens. As it stands, Lilly is definitely not a hen - which I began to suspect early on when he grew faster than the other three (Pearl - a black Australorp, and Sally and Savannah - speckled Sussex hens) and his legs were bigger as well. The tell tale pointed feathers and the doubt erasing crowing didn't show up until several weeks later. 

Savannah and Sally

Pearl, hanging out in the top of the Japanese maple tree

So now we have two roosters and two separate flocks: the "bigs" and the "littles." Gretchen rules the bigs, who reside in the bigger coop and spend half the day in their run, and Lilly is the leader of the littles, who sleep in the little coop and spend the whole day roaming freely simply because they are littler than the bigs and haven't integrated into the flock yet. I'm sure the neighbors are thrilled.* We will be making Lilly a crow collar soon, however, so hopefully the crowing will calm down a bit. Gretchen seems relatively resigned to his crow collar: he seems to crow less frequently than Lilly and when he does crow, the volume is somewhat reduced. I have often wondered if the diminished volume of his crow is a source of some embarrassment to him so he just decides to stay quiet most of the time. Lilly, currently without a crow collar, has no such inhibitions. He crows regularly and loudly throughout the morning. He seems to refrain from raising a ruckus as soon as the bigs are let out of their run to free range during the afternoon and evening. Lilly appears to recognize that Gretchen is indeed the supreme ruler of the backyard (even the dogs are scared of him) and is wise enough not to tangle with him or antagonize him in any way, including crowing, which would only serve to alert Gretchen to Lilly's location hidden away in the grape arbor any way. 

In thinking about it now, I realize that we seem to have bad luck with barred rocks. Aside from Lucy, every other barred rock chicken we have had here on the Unfarm has been a rooster. A few years ago, when we allowed Georgia to hatch a batch of eggs after she went broody, we ended up with several barred rock chicks (on account of the fact that Georgia was stealing the other hen's eggs and rolling them into her nest) and every one of them turned out to be roosters. And now Lilly. 

We can only hope that he will be a friendly rooster so that we are not forced to send him away. Dad tolerates Gretchen when Gretchen is confined in the run but will not venture into the backyard when Gretchen is roaming freely, as Dad is adamant that Gretchen will attack him if given the chance. I have always found him to be pretty nice to Mom and I but maybe he just doesn't like men. I don't know if our luck would hold out if we ended up with two "attack roosters."

* Note: Fear not, we actually talk to our neighbors fairly regularly and they don't really seem to mind the chickens. One neighbor actually suggested we get a rooster to accompany our hens, not realizing we already had one at the time.

Lilly, our barred rock rooster

Beware of attack chicken

We have, residing here on the Unfarm, an attack chicken. This attack chicken's name is Gretchen and he (yes, you read that right - he) is our rooster. We named him as a chick when we were told that he was a she and the name just stuck. If you ask either my mom or I our opinion on said rooster you would be told that he is a fearsome defender of (almost) all of his lady hens but otherwise he is relatively harmless and even somewhat comical at times - performing his sidestepping shuffle dance for us in an attempt to either add us to his harem or show who is in charge, depending upon which theory you ascribe to. According to Dad, however, Gretchen is a "mean rooster" who attacks both frequently and without remorse. 

In looking at various threads on the backyardchickens.com website the main consensus seems to be that Gretchen's behavior is dominance based and that he should be culled from the flock. Well, that's just not how we roll around here - Gretchen is family and we just don't go around killing our family members. We just don't. And besides, it's not like Gretchen isn't good for anything. He does protect most of the ladies. Penny is the notable exception - we're not sure if it's because she is older than the rest of the chickens and so didn't grow up with Gretchen and his crew or if it is because she is sporting spurs on her legs - but whatever the reason, Penny is definitely lowest down in the pecking order and frequently gets picked on or chased by Gretchen and several of the other hens. 

Aside from his lack of protective instincts towards Penny, Gretchen is quite protective of all the other hens and no one is too big for Gretchen to go up against when it comes to someone bothering his ladies. Axel, the largest of the three dogs, grew up with chickens and cows on a farm somewhere before we rescued him from the shelter so he generally leaves the chickens alone. Scout and Molly, however, are another story. Scout thinks that the chickens are endlessly fascinating toys of some sort and they only want for the proper persuasion to get them to join in a rousing game of chase. Molly will chase almost anything that a) moves and b) is smaller than her. Being a chihuahua mix not many things fall under category b, although she will join Scout if he decides to chase the chickens. The chickens, for their part, squawk and flap their wings and tear around the yard in a highly disorganized manner that often leads them back into the path of the dogs. Hearing this commotion, Gretchen races to the rescue. He flies into the dog run and heads straight for whatever dog is closest and slams into their side, effectively drawing the attention away from the hens in order to give them time to make their escape from the dog run. The party is generally over at that point. The hens are gone and none of the dogs wants to tangle with Gretchen the attack chicken so for now the good outweighs the bad and Gretchen is staying where he is, "mean" or not.

Gretchen, our attack chicken