LESSONS I'VE LEARNED IN THE CHICKEN COOP

Don’t Get Fooled By a Slick Talking Rooster Type: 

Chicken sex is part of the ambiance and romance of having a hobby farm. It’s random. It’s funny. It’s constant.

Our Mac daddy Americanus rooster, Roadie, is a gorgeous example of why hens just can’t say no. Mostly because they have brains the size of peas (thus the term pea brained) and really short memories.

Roadie is a lover-boy. His favorite seal-the-deal strategy is to fake finding a juicy worm or chubby grub and then make lovely clucky noises that being interpreted mean, come over hear you darling plump hens and share this lovely chubby grub with me. Cluckity, cluck, bock, bock, yum . . .

And those hens come running—every single time—twenty times a day. While they’ve got their heads down expecting to find a crisp cricket dinner, he jumps them. Twenty. Times. A. Day.

Seriously?  Sometimes I want to yell at my hens, “He’s lying to you. He’s a liar. There’s no grub, worm, or cricket. He just wants in your pants. AGAIN!”

They never learn, but then again they’re chickens with peas for brains.

Side Note: If the fake cricket scam doesn’t work he stretches one wing to the ground and prances like a court jester. The hens dazzled by his magnificence forget what they were doing. Then he jumps them.

When I was a kid we had a pair of roosters that used to tag team the hens. One would pin the poor gal’s head to the ground while the other one well . . . jumped her, and then they would switch. It was like having a pair of serial rapists running amok in the barn. Then there was the hen that was blind in one eye and how they used to sneak up on her bad side. Eagles murdered those nasty roosters, reducing them to two piles of bloody feathers. It was hard to feel bad.

Moral of the story:  Get the cricket up front.

Hens Squabbling With Other Hens Does Not Pay:

Our hens squabble. They want to lay their eggs in the same nest at the same time so they sit on each other. Some pecking may be involved. Or they occasionally argue over a lovely bit of greenery in the yard. Bok. Bok. Cluckity. Step off, you clucking piece of . . . Bok!

Roadie the Mac Daddy Rooster hears them fighting, knows they’re distracted, races over, and then jumps on one or all.

Sigh.

The Moral of the Story:  Folks who want us to believe that we are no different than the animals in my chicken coop should spend some time in my chicken coop.

Here’s the truth of it. I only need one rooster for a whole flock of ditzy hens. Heads up gentlemen.

Linda (Henny Penny) Zern