Monty Has Been Turned Into Stew....

We sent our WC black Polish rooster to freezer camp yesterday. He just would not stop attacking myself and our daughter, every time we went near the chickens. I tried all the suggestions: pick him up and carry him around, dangle him upside down, back him down and show him who's boss. Nothing helped. There were times I kicked at him and bounced him off the run fence or coop wall, and he just stood up and came right back at me every single time. He'd charge and flog the fence if we were on the other side of it.

And he wasn't much good for the hens, either. He wasn't really rough mating them. Actually, they pretty much wanted nothing to do with him. He'd try, either with the dance thing or when he got frustrated, just chase 'em down, but they'd turn and beat the crap out of him till he stopped. He never brought them treats or showed them something yummy he found. When I put the treat bowl in the run and let them out of the coop, he'd charge down the ramp and start gobbling all the food himself.

It got to the point that if I wanted to work in the run, I'd have to lock him in the coop, and when I needed to be in the coop, he'd get locked in the run. I just wasn't willing to put up with that anymore. So, we put him in a cage and took him to the farm we get our CSA share from and they processed him right away yesterday morning. He's going in the stew pot next week sometime. The weird thing is, while she was cleaning him out, the woman at the farm held out her hand and said, "Well, there's your problem!" He had the biggest- umm, errr, "man parts" she'd ever seen on a rooster. And they process hundreds of meat birds every year. Even her 3 girls, who were helping her, were freaked by the size. So I guess he was just a raging bundle of hormones?

The impressive thing was her girls. They are fairly young. The oldest is maybe 10 or 11. All three wanted to help pluck him and clean him. They have obviously grown up around a working farm and know exactly where their food comes from. Not a lot of kids that age would be asking Mom- "Can I cut the legs off now?"

I'm gonna miss the crowing, that's for sure. I did like the sound of him out there. But just was not a nice fellow. Maybe sometime in the future I'll try another breed and see if we can get a good one.