Handsome Is As Handsome Does

I thought he was quite handsome with his lovely hackle,

his erect carriage, straight toes, and full body.

Surely, he would be viral and give me lots of hearty chicks.

Now I'm wondering. I've checked the eggs in the incubator searching for a dark mass inside. This weekend they should hatch and I'm not sure anything will.  Well, I think it is this weekend. I forgot to put it on the calendar and life has been a big blur.

Anyway, this handsome cock was chosen amongst three candidates to be put into the coop with the hens. Two weeks later I started gathering eggs. He was an excited rooster when he first caught sight of where he was headed and I saw him mount a number of hens. Then he started acting aggresive toward me. I promise, I try my best not to swing my pail of feed when I enter and I never confront him by walking in a frontal attack position but still he wasn't nice. And to think how the hens love me, it isn't fair. 

No, I never gave him cause to worry but one day when I turned my back to exit the coop. He came a flying with his spurs raised. Again a few days later he tried to get me when I turned my back but I had an eye out for just such a move and I dropped kicked him out into the run. After that he went out into the run every time I opened the coop door. Who said chickens were stupid?

Some might say I did wrong by this move. I've found if a rooster is mildly aggresive, you look for what you've done wrong but if one attacks you, it's war. A war you had better win and in a hurry or you've just given the rooster a gladiators high and he's going to do it again and again until he's stopped. Dead being the only end. I've got grand daughters safety to think of when they join me at the corrals.

This rooster has also tried several times to make a dash for the door to get out and finally succeeded a few days ago, leaving me wondering, maybe he isn't getting along to well with the hens. That coupled with two hens that died last week. Pretty strange since I haven't lost a hen since I put them in the coop last spring. 

Yup, pretty is as pretty does and this escaped cock, whom I couldn't herd back into the coop by my lonesome, will soon meet his demized when Kirk is off this weekend and I've help to catch him. 

This rooster and two others that is who are in a small coop. I'm not going to start another batch of eggs if these don't hatch. I've decided to not start more animal projects, just get to work on fixing up the house to sell. Besides, there is alway Sherman here.  He's the head peeking in the picture on the left. He's chasing Penney, the neighbors hen.

"Here we go around the mulberry bush", well, maybe not a mulberry bush since Penney might be bushy, or maybe she's best described as plump and she definitely doesn't hold still making the circling a might trickier. None the less, Sherman does his best first with Penney, who's begun living in the goat shed. Then he heads toward the back of our pens to circle round and round our older black hen that we let run loose.

Yes, if you are wondering, the top Wyodotte rooster does have a bloody comb and neck. He and Sherman have been fighting. Sherman is winning. How can I tell? He isn't nearly as beat up.

And despite what you might think. It's the chickens that chase the cats, not the other way around. That is why this barn cat is giving Penney a wary eye.