The dangerous job of chicken farming!

Bessette Family Farm has gotten a little "cocky" this year. We are enjoying the Dark Cornish breeder-flock that we started last year, for the purpose of egg production, but also for the ability to hatch our own meat-birds for butchering. We have had incredible success at hatching (83%) and excellent survival rates...I think we have only lost 3 chicks out of about 70. So far, so good. But we are getting a little "cocky" around here....

To produce baby chicks, there are several key ingredients....in addition to hens that lay eggs, it is important that we have roosters that fertilize the eggs. Of course, unfertilized eggs make great omelets, but not so great baby chicks! Anyway, we have been experimenting at the correct number of roosters that abide with the hens. We have read that a 1:10 ratio of rooster:hens is ideal. We started with 25 roosters to 100 hens, figuring that we would lose some to predators. All roosters survived. This resulted in a small butchering session.... a day when 12 roosters earned the privilege of abiding in the Bessette chest freezer instead of the hen-house!

Last Friday, while the girls were doing school work, I decided to get the chicken chores done by myself. Usually, we feed the chickens outside of the hen house (in their electric-fenced yard),then one person blocks up the entrance to their house with a trash-can lid, while the second person collects eggs and replenishes water. All of this is necessary due to not-so-friendly roosters! On this day, I guess I wasn't thinking about the dangers of chicken farming. I fed the chickens, then entered the house. No eggs yet, so I grabbed the waterer and began to exit the hen house. Just as I was leaving, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a rooster flying up at me...feet-first...attempting to "spur" me! I quickly reacted by shutting the door. What I saw next not only perplexed me, but made me double over in laughter!

There is a gap between the bottom of the door and the frame. I haven't measured it, but it looks to me like it is just about the width of a rooster's leg....




The bad rooster did a little "sit-up" and just looked at me with discouragement as his efforts to kill me were thwarted! I left him there for just long enough to get Austyn to take some pictures, because I couldn't even begin to describe how this happened???? Once set free, he returned to the flock...scolded by his band of brothers and ashamed of his miserable failure. The dictionary defines "cocky" as too sure of oneself; arrogant; conceited....may we all learn a lesson from the roosters!