Homesteading

The Peculiar Case of the Rooster

At the start of October my oldest came back in, after letting the birds out for the morning. He asked me “You didn’t tell me you took in a new bird!”.

Um…what?

I went down and there was a new bird just hanging out. On the edge of our middle coop.

He was very, very tiny. And a rooster. I asked a lady I know for ID help, and found out it was a Sebright breed, a Bantam variety. So a tiny bird type.

What we could only guess is he was dumped on the rural road we live along, and he plodded along till he heard hens and figured “Ladies I have the solution to the problem you didn’t know you had!”. My oldest has a habit of waiting till dark to shut the birds in, so the little rooster slipped into the run (gate was open, they free range all day) and hid in the lower coop. In the dark my son never saw him.

That morning he was very thirsty and hungry.

The hens have accepted him oddly enough. They almost mother him, I have to think it is his size. He is barely a quarter the size of most of them.

At night he happily sleeps in the coop with the ladies. And the other rooster, who is now barely a teen (he was one of the babies the hens had this summer). It shall be interesting to see what happens once that rooster matures. I keep waiting for the crowing to start up. Kirk can’t stand crowing. But he is needed, I need a rooster for the 3rd coop, who are not related, to have more babies to grow our flock.

At the time he showed up he was just a tiny bit smaller than the “babies” (the 3 birds our hens hatched) This little hen on the left is now 3 times his size!

He’s a pretty little bird though. He tried to crow once the 2nd day here, but sounded like his squeaker wasn’t working. Since then, he minds his business and just hangs out. So I let him be. It wasn’t his fault he got dumped. It’s pretty lame when people do that, and refuse to deal with their own farm issues. But as for his age, no idea. He’s healthy so there is that.

At least our homestead was there for him to find shelter in. And he sure loves sunflower time every day!

~Sarah