Frick

We aren’t really sure if it was Frick or Frack – or maybe both – but when he (or they) started attacking the hens (and not in a productive, or shall we say a reproductive way), we knew they had to go. One of those gorgeous fellows had already launched himself at Nyel’s ankle with that my-spurs-are-bigger-than-your-spurs sort of attitude. Their days were numbered.

We hadn’t bargained for roosters in the first place. “Six hens, please” was what we ordered, but it was impossible to predict if any of those little yellow fluff balls we picked up in April would ‘turn into’ roosters – much less into identical twin beauties. We told them, just as we told all the baby chicks, that if they were boys they had to be nice. Otherwise…

Frack

But, when push came to shove, or cockle became doodle-doo, we couldn’t face putting them in the stewpot. Nyel scooped them up the other middle-of-the-night when they were fast asleep on their perch and put each young lad into his own cardboard box. The feistier of the two got out almost immediately, never mind the lid, and had to be recaptured an hour or so later when he had settled into dreamland once more.

The next morning the boys were driven to the Planter Box where Theresa gave each his own spiffy display cage. We wish them well in their search for a new home. Perhaps a chicken farmer with a big flock of bossy hens will come along and take one of them. Or maybe an artist will want the two of them for modeling purposes. They are gorgeous, after all.

Undoubtedly, they miss their four hen friends here in Oysterville but I don’t think the girls have given those bad boys a second thought. I hope, instead, that they are turning their thoughts toward egg-laying. We haven’t had fresh, free-range eggs since the raccoons made off with our last flock way back in November.

It’s not easy raising chickens…