Herbert the rooster came with the house – the story is that the original owner kept quite a roosters and was selling them, giving them away and butchering them in the wind down to moving out of the home he built 30 years ago and Herbie was the last rooster left. Young and full of life, we escaped the chop with just a nick to the neck and was a little too quick to catch again for another attempt.
We’re not sure how long before we moved in that all happened, but when we arrived he was just milling around the yard foraging for bugs and pecking away at weeds and greenery.
*After* the old girl took a chomp at his tail feathers we promptly closed him into the coop, despite that it was super dingy and overgrown, and threw him some seed which he thoroughly enjoyed (who knows how long it had been since he was given a steady amount of grain and wasn’t relying on what he could forage!).
Next came cleaning out the coop(s) – yep, there’s two, and they were both pretty worse for wear. Thankfully they were wired entirely to keep chooks in, however they were not wired sufficiently to keep snakes, mice and rats out (we’ve got a few of those around!). Based on what we found in the coops, I think we raised chicks at some point, but there were so many cages and bits of wire in there they successfully shielded a miniature forest of spikey weeds. Poor Herbert was dodging those spikey “trees” for weeks while we toiled to away clearing out those coops over multiple weekends.
Then we had to re-wire all the sides and the roof with avery wire to ensure no sneaky snakes could slither their way in and keep all manner of vermin out of nesting among the hay. We severely underestimated how much we needed and ended up having to make at least four trips to get enough to cover all the walls, ceiling and gates, we ran out of screws twice and staples once. Thankfully, we only had to pull one baby carpet snake out before the whole thing was secured.
Since the hen-ovations we’ve received two crimpy-feathered bantams from my parents, was gifted a severely hen-pecked (and as a result – half blind) hen from the neighbours, purchased two ex-battery hens from the local markets, hatched one chick from an egg, fertilised and incubated by one of our own broody ends, purchased two chicks to raise with the hatchling and received a flock of 6 hens from a dear friend. Our little flock is now 14 strong – they’re still working out their pecking order and once the chicks are old enough to integrate, they’ll find their place among the flock too.
I do wish they’d lay in the boxes provided rather than under the roost / wherever they feel like it, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out over time. It’s likely that being stalked by a pair of 6 month old kelpies all day doesn’t help and surely results in a few stress eggs, but they seem perfectly happy and comfortably protected by their defiant, yet small in stature rooster protector who’s flock has grown significantly since the life we had before we came along!
