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Imagine my delight at NOT seeing a hairy- or girlie-male imaged here … again.

Hell, Stoaty, go ahead and let them breed for a while. If you get a spare rooster (or tired of the loudmouth bantam), simply drive it over to the next county and release it near another chicken-raiser household. You know – share the wealth. Then drive away really fast!

Roosters don’t have ID tags or anything, do they? Fingerprints?

Chickens!!11!!!eleventy!!11 :+)

5 stars!!

What’s tragic about chicken and biscuits? For the love of God – you grew up in Tennessee. Get with the program.

Pan fried. With cornbread and collards. I’m just sayin’…

I don’t know any songs about Chickens that I can quote… So ya’ll are safe….for a day.

“bantam cockerels”

Band name sorted.

My mama used to call them “banty roosters” — and she called little men that, too. Contemptuously (though she married one second time around).

I’m on the fence re chikkens, to get them or not.

It would be just my luck to get a flock of divas or for them to all drop dead.

I reserved a space for a coop & run within my fenced veggie garden…so I must decide as Spring is progressing fast hereabouts; plant two more fruit trees or get chickens

I’d like the eggs, but I can buy fresh eggs from a lady just down the road. I also like the idea of more self-sufficiency too.

Stoaty, could you run the positive aspects by me.

Well, BJM, I keep Pekin Bantams (often called Cochins in the States, I think). They are useless as meat chickens and only moderately useful as egg layers, though I much prefer their eggs (they’re quite small, but the yolks are the size of regular chicken eggs, so everything you make with them is deliciously yolky and vivid orange).

We love them because they’re beautiful and they have huge outsized personalities. We’ve had six birds (of six different colors) and each one has had a totally different temperament, different tastes, different voice. The flock itself has a sort of personality of its own that changes as birds are added or die.

Because they’re small and not too destructive, you can let them free range in the garden without too many plant casualties. That’s the best, because when you step outside, the whole flock runs up to you like puppies. Like, “OMG — IT’S YOU! THAT’S AWESOME!”

I could watch my chickens all day. But self-sufficiency? Not so much. You need to harden your heart to take on livestock as a practical matter.

This Old House – How to Build a Chicken Coop for Six:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7tnCDXa-rY

I’m not very handy, HL. Plus, these days I can get a flat-pack henhouse on eBay for probably cheaper than I can buy the materials. No kidding.

The same henhouse I bought from a chikken dealer six years ago is about half as expensive on eBay today. Yup, been chikkenhouse shopping, too.

Can’t a rooster be “fixed”? You gave Mad Jack the snip, IIRC.

(There is an on-going program in Colombia to catch and castrate feral hippopotamuses. Their ancestors escaped from Pablo Escobar’s private zoo, and there are now 30 to 60 of them.)

Top Animal causes of death in Africa:
1) Hippos
2) Spectacled cobra
3) Nile crocodile

@Some Vegetable,

“Chickery Chick,” a silly, catchy song, was at the top of the charts in 1945. Sammy Kaye, the Andrews Sisters, Frank Sinatra, and (later) Tiny Tim released recordings of it, all available for your listening pleasure on YouTube.

Thanks Stoaty, we have three English Springers so chickens wandering around the property isn’t a starter.

The veggie garden is 60 x 80 ft fenced with 7′ no-climb cattle panel wire to keep deer out, so they’d have sufficient scratching room. I’d get a coop with a run cuz foxes, hawks and owls abound…big fooking barn owls.

The self-sufficiency part would be eggs as I couldn’t harden my heart enough to kill them for meat, so eventually I’d be running a chikken senior home.

I went chicken shopping today. I love the Buff Orpingtons’ fluffy chicken butts. Orps are good layers and said to be calmer than most breeds. Any input re Orps?

My input re: buff orpingtons — I LOVE BUFF ORPINGTONS. They’re beautiful big floofy birds, though I gather they’re more feather than bird. I was actually on my way to buy buff orps when I was talked into bantams (because of the damage to Uncle B’s garden that orpingtons would do). Are you in the States? I thought orpingtons were strictly a local (British) thing (Orpington being a place nearby. One of my neighbors is an Orpington man).

Now the downside: I’ve heard (do please check to confirm) that orpingtons are brilliant layers for three years, but live for ten.

Huh. I assumed you’d be as handy as a shirt on a pocket! 😉

My older sister has a flock of hens and one effing rooster. She lives in way southern AZ ( like she can see Mexico from her kitchen window). Her chickens are a fancy breed with a feather crown…?polish? Her rooster is a big version of the hens in a stunning white and gray. He”s a loud bastard and my sister keeps hoping somebody will crawl across the border and be hungry enough to steal him in the middle of the night. Damn bird is 5 years old now and no takers so far.

Yeah, I felt that way about our rooster when I was a kid. He was a banty rooster, too. Little bastard would crow at 2am outside my bedroom window.

Possum got him, eventually. And then the rest of the flock.

Stoaty, I’m in the California Central foothills, between Gold Country and the Valley.

>Now the downside: I’ve heard (do please check to confirm) that orpingtons are brilliant layers for three years, but live for ten.

They’re called Kent Orpingtons hereabouts…so figured you would be familiar with them. I’ll ask around.

Rhode Island Red Bantams, California White, Black Australorp, Buff Orpington and Wyandotte seem to be the most popular backyard breeds in my area.

Gran kept R.I. Reds but I think they are too aggressive. I want mellow chikkens.

The nearby family that sells eggs has Easter Eggers and Olive Eggers, (Easter Egger hens crossed with blue Wyandotte or black Australorp). I hadn’t even consider colored eggs.

I am beginning to see the appeal.

@Armybrat – Don’t Polish chickens remind you of HRH Princess Eugenie’s fascinators?

When I was a kid, our flock was Araucanas. Or so my mother said. Some variety of easter egg chickens, anyway.

Wyandottes are purty.

You can tell it’s spring around here when Craigslist is full of ads for free roos. People actually think somebody wants their problem for anything but Coq au Vin.

Of course, spare cockerels is a problem that’ll fix itself.

Rich, one can “fix” a rooster. It’s called caponising. It stops them from killing each other and keeps their meat from getting stringy.