Roosters???

When I first talked about getting chickens, I said, very adamantly might I add, that in no way shape or form would I get a rooster. Why you might ask?

Well, when I was around 16 or 17 I went over to a friend's house and she had chickens, unbeknownst to me. We went into the backyard because she had to clean the fish filter, and right as I stepped out here comes her rooster. That little #### ended up chasing me around her backyard. I was screaming and she was on the ground laughing. I'll never forget how terrified I was of this thing. She finally came over and grabbed him, and he calmed right down, but he knew I was a stranger.

Fast forward to last year when I got chickens. I knew that I didn't need a rooster to get eggs, that the hens would lay an egg every day (sort of) without a man around. And that was all I wanted chickens for...eggs. Because let's be for real...eggs from the store taste awful. Not to mention, once they get to the store they've been washed, and are usually at least a month old and can't be left out of the refrigerator for any length of time.

So, roosters were never going to be in my flock. EVER!! Well, never say never. lol

about 2 months after I got chickens, I was talking to Cindy, my sister-in-law, and she said that only one baby had survived the hatch she did, and she felt bad because the poor chicken was lonely. So, against my better judgement I adopted a Lavender Orpington with the idea that it was a hen. My daughter and I decided to name the new chicken, Smokey. Fast forward a few weeks and this adorable little chicken starts getting saddle feathers like a rooster. I'm not happy at all. Then he starts crowing, and it is the cutest thing I have ever heard in my life. (Side note: when a young rooster learns to crow its very strained sounding, and can even be a little funny, but they try so hard)

Smokey has now been a part of our flock for over a year, and while him and I have had our challenges (and that's putting it nicely) he is a staple in the flock now.

This year we decided to add 10 more chickens to our flock. We added 5 Leghorns, and 5 Rhode Island Reds. Well, that was the plan, but as always God laughed at my plan. lol I got my 5 Leghorns, 1 rooster and 4 hens, just like I wanted. I want to breed them to get more babies in the years to come, so I had to get breeding groups. The only problem with this thought process was that when I got my Rhode Island Reds, I somehow ended up with 1 rooster and 1 hen. The other 3 chickens are clearly NOT RIR's. I have a rooster, who is speckled and I suspect he is a mix between a Barred Rock and a Rhode Island Red, and 2 hens that I suspect are either Buff Orpington's or Golden Comets. Either way those 3 are not what I wanted. Let's add on to that the fact that out of 10 chickens, I ended up with 3 (yes, you read that right) ROOSTERS!!

So, the woman who never wanted roosters has now ended up with 4!!!

The plan, is to let them grow up to full grown, eat the speckled one, and keep the other 3. But I will be putting Smokey, my Lavender Orpington, in a separate pen with the 2 hens that I suspect are Buff Orpington's, and 2 more Lavenders that I'm getting from Cindy. This way I will now have 3 different breeding groups. The Leghorns and Rhode Island's will stay in the large pen/coop together. They can breed together, I have learned that they create a hybrid called a sex-link, which means that at hatch you can tell how many roosters you have. Which will be great, because those hybrids will be little egg machines.

Moral of the story: Never say Never. lol