by Pat Lunsford

Created on: March 18, 2008   Last Updated: November 06, 2009

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.

However, 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, but he was young and about the same size as the hens. 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 roosters 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 the 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 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 Big Red 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 up 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 the first night and Big Red followed and attacked him, knocking

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>