Roosters and hens are chickens and relatively inexpensive to raise. Basically, all they need is a shelter to roost. You can make it elaborate, but all we had for our twelve chickens was a small shed with a shelf. We stretched a wire fence around the shed and scattered hay for them to nest and lay eggs. They seemed perfectly content.
We weren’t very knowledgeable about chickens when we first started raising them. The feed store was the only place to get chickens in our area and they didn’t have much of a selection. We started with six Rhode Island Red hens and a Dominick rooster because it was all they had. The rooster is usually bigger than the hens, but he was young and about the same size as the hens. And being so young, his crow was a bit weak and scratchy. But the hens adored him and followed him everywhere. We named him Fritz.
Fritz was funny to watch. Anyone who is familiar with the characteristics of a rooster knows how proud and arrogant they can be. They strut like peacocks and although Fritz didn’t have much to strut, being so young, he strutted around that pen like some kind of prince.
Rhode Island Reds lay brown eggs and we were tickled to death when we gathered our first three eggs. I cooked them that morning for breakfast and they were delicious. We knew the hens would lay more eggs once they got settled in and familiar with their new home.
Chickens will eat just about anything. We fed them the feed recommended by the feed store. They loved cornbread. I cooked a pan of cornbread about twice a week and after dinner, I would crumble it and scatter it out on the ground for them. They picked furiously at it and liked cornbread better than their feed.
It was about two weeks of getting the chickens when the feed store got in a Rhode Island Red rooster. Of course, we just had to have him. He was twice as big as the hens and he was absolutely beautiful. We named him Big Red. However, we didn’t stop to think about how our two roosters would react to each other.
As soon as we released him into the pen, the hens flocked around him, leaving Fritz standing alone by the fence. We hadn’t anticipated that and didn’t know what to do. Actually, there wasn’t much we could do. Fritz was a young Dominick and the hens were Rhode Island Reds so Big Red was the perfect rooster for them.
In the evenings, the rooster always flew to the shelf in the shed and the hens would join him, huddling up close to him for the night. Fritz flew up to the shelf that first night and Big Red followed and attacked him, knocking him off the shelf. The hens joined Big Red, and Fritz slept alone in the hay.
With each passing day, I got to where I just didn’t like Big Red, the way he strutted around the pen, jumping at Fritz when he came near any of the hens. One evening, I was taking a piece of cornbread to them and Fritz was leaning against the shed, looking pitiful. I felt so sorry for him. I told my husband I wanted to build another shed and get Fritz some Dominick hens of his own.
The next morning, I was in the pen scattering chicken feed when I heard a fluttering sound and before I could turn around, a stabbing pain hit my back as huge, flapping wings slapped against both sides of my face. Big Red had dug his spurs into me. I threw him off with a screech. He came at me again and my husband crossed the yard shouting and stomping at the rooster as I got out of the pen.
Our neighbor down the street had chickens and we talked to him about it. He told us that Rhode Island Red roosters were very aggressive and that unless we got him for breeding purposes, we really didn’t need him. He told us that the hens would be perfectly content with any rooster, and that Fritz would grow to be twice their size.
We ended up selling Big Red to our neighbor and Fritz was the happiest little rooster in the world when the man approached Big Red, grabbed him by his feet, and carried him upside down out of the yard.
That evening, we watched Fritz fly up to the shelf, positioning himself in the middle, giving his hens plenty of room to huddle around him. One by one they all flew up to the shelf and gathered around. If chickens had lips, I’d swear Fritz was smiling that evening.
