We have a flock of two year old hens that we raised from fluff balls, and a flock that we got this past Feb at the local feed store. We purchased two Modern English game hens hoping to get a hen and a roo. Well we ended up with 2 roo's from the game hens. I keep one roo in with our flock of banti's and the other roo, Thor is in with the big girls. Thor will always challange me when I go into the main hen house, or when they are free ranging. Sometimes my older girls will protect me when he goes into his attack dance. They puff up their neck feathers and get between Thor and I then he backs down. So we have been tossing up in the air if we should keep Thor or have him for BBQ. Well this morning he proved himself and has a high place of honor in my book. I let the girls out to free range along with Thor at sunrise this morning. I was relaxing having a cup of coffee when I noticed that the girls were all making a strange noise, the alarm sound. I told my wife that something was up, so I went out to check on them. As I came out on the back deck, sitting on the rail looking down on the free range yard was a hawk. Most of the girls had taken off under the sunroom or into the cover of the hedges that line our property. Thor was standing down the hawk with his feather's all puffed up ready to do battle. He had two of the girls backed up along the fence of the run, protecting them. Now this hawk out weighed Thor by a good few pounds, but he was ready to fight. When the hawk saw me it took off, I went down to do a head count and make sure all were OK. Thor challanged me as I entered the yard, but did back down. I gave the flock some 3 way hay to calm them down and stood and watched as Thor stood on a rock watching over HIS flock as they peacefully scratched around. As much as he can be a little pain in my butt at times, he is doing what we wanted a roo for, to protect his flock. This little scrapper has gained new respect from me and will continue to enjoy life doing what a Roo is expected to do, even if it means I have to carry a spray bottle to back him down at times.
