Little Red

[princessmama]

We used to have a chicken "menagerie", a bunch of different breeds of chicken and a few of their "mutt" offspring. Such a fun crew! (A bear broke in while we were on a vacation in December eating 2/3 of our chickens and smashing the coop to bits. Relatives who were feeding them for us had quite the mess on their hands)

One of the roosters was a mille fleur booted bantam named Little Red. (That's him on my avatar. I'd post a bigger pic but can't get at them at the moment). He was quite the selfish little rooster at first. He spent all his time trying to steal girls from out "boss rooster" Gimpy. He didn't ever take guard duty or help find food while free ranging.

Then one day he accepted his place in the chicken family hierarchy and became a very entertaining fellow

If there were any hens in the nest-boxes Little Red would sit on the edge of the row of boxes and keep careful watch. He took his turn watching the sky and the path to the coop.

The funniest thing that he would do was hang out near any human who was in the area and "pretend" to eat while really keeping a very sharp eye on the "intruder". He would peck at dried leaves and twigs. Bits of dirt clod. And scratch. Pick things up and drop them. If you moved he would instantly reposition himself between you and any nearby hens or chicks, scratching and pecking all the while. It was funny to see how long he could keep up his casual facade while you walked slowly around the chicken yard.

 

[Wolftalk]

Ha! He sounds like Mr. Personality to me!

 

[b.hromada]

He turned out to be a great guy! Sorry for your loss.

 

[princessmama]

Thank you He was my hubby's favorite chicken. We keep talking about chickens again, once we finally fix the coop. I'm afraid to go through that heartbreak again

But I miss them so much.

 

[theoldchick]

What a heartwarming story. I learned about bear attacks on this forum. Yikes! How do you repel a bear? Besides the obvious of shooting it, but dang!

 

[princessmama]

I learned about bear attacks on this forum. Yikes! How do you repel a bear? Besides the obvious of shooting it, but dang!

My 8 yr old suggested building a steel coop

We've talked about getting a livestock guard dog, but they can be aggressive toward visitors and we are just not sure we're up for the training it would take to have one. How else to repel a bear?

We also have foxes, racoons, possum, skunks, neighbor's dogs, stray cats (which we have dealt with over and over--taking to the pound,shooting etc they keep popping up. They don't bother the big chickens but they've snatched chicks from our bantam mamas while they were free-ranging). It's been quite a ride trying to keep birds alive out here. Our coop was keeping out the little critters and we would let the chickens out when we were home since occasional humans strolling the yard seemed to keep the daytime attacks at bay.

 

[princessmama]

We had a bantam cochin rooster named Gimpy, because he had one leg that didn't touch the ground much. We're guessing it was a broken bone that didn't get set. My fil brought him home one day (we had just lost the last of our first flock to the neighbor's dog!) along with three hens (two bantam cochin and a bantam ee) one of them with four little chicks. We added to this little family over the next couple years. Our little roo with the big limp was always the BOSS though! And as sweet a rooster as you could ask for. He ruled the roost even with Little Red, Big Chicken (a blrw who was large, but well, a "chicken' lol), Lester (a bantam cochin cross), and Roadrunner (bantam ee).