My Roosters are Gone Now...

I had to go get some Chicken scratch for our chickens on Wednesday. There is a small local feed store not far from our house that I discovered a few months ago and as I was paying for the scratch I asked the lady/owner if she wanted some roosters... I had had NO takers on our freecycle list and was getting desperate... I figured at the least they would just sell them from their store, if they could...

Anyway, surprisingly she asked, "What kind are they?" I really didn't know, but the kids and I did our best to describe the remaining 5 roosters that we had at home to get rid of. She then asked, "Do they fight or anything? How much do you want for them?"

Well, gosh, I was just looking to get rid of them, so I just told her, "They don't really fight too much, yet, because they grew up together and none of them have had hens to defend, so... You want them?" lol... anyway, about that time my oldest son came walking up from the back of the store where they have their chicken and pigeon coops and asks the lady how much her hens are and she tells them $8. These were 'teenager' hens, not quite laying age yet, but no longer babies... I asked, "would you trade a hen for the roosters?" She said she would have to see the roosters, so I told her I would bring them in the next day...

So, after all my other running around on Thursday, we boxed up the last of our roosters, who were none to happy about it, and took them back to the feed store. The lady happily dumped them in to the chicken coop with all the other hens and they seemed quite happy for the time being... She then told us we could have one hen for each rooster! Wow! GREAT trade!! : )

Well, we actually ended up with 3 little brown hens and one 'dominique' banty hen that she told me I could have, she was just SO adorable, I couldn't resist. Yeah, she's itty-bitty, and will only lay little eggs, but my daughter won't mind, since she has this thing about eating things that are "small"... and hopefully in another month or two, we will actually have them all laying eggs, and the kids won't have to wait until spring to get some new baby chick hens... woohoo!

So, for now, our remaining barred rock rooster has been separated from the group while the 4 new hens make nice with our one barred rock hen that we already had. She is trying to push her weight around pecking them away from the food and water, but she's out numbered, so I think that they will settle down in a few days... then we'll see if we can reintroduce Joe (the rooster) to the group. For now, he's crowing in 'protest', but even still, it was MUCH quieter this morning at sunrise! The kids didn't start emerging from their rooms until 8:30! lol...