I know they don’t. Probably. It was a brief fantasy about finding a reason to get rid of the rooster and win the war once and forever. Another attack from the front line happened this morning. I also witnessed the rooster being a bit of a bastard. Not doing his rooster duties right away.
At 7:30, I came downstairs and prepared some hen feed but the rooster can also eat. He stood proudly right outside the exit to the house with his main hens at his side.
He crows ”FEED US NOW!” As of I can understand. I suppose I can. It’s not as bright out at 730 anymore but he wants to make sure I remember him.
He won’t move out of my path for a while. The other two hens quickly figure out what’s going on and move out of my way but he stays there, pecking at the concrete porch steps as if he’s looking for scraps that we both know aren’t there.
Eventually I tire of the game, and make my way around the side delicately all the while holding my defensive stick between him and I. I mixed my way towards the main feeding ground nearby and he and the other two hens follow.
This area has a big water container for drinking and two metal dishes ideal for the two types of feed I bring out several times a day. I fill the first one with the pellets and the three of them begin to eat.
I am about to go fill the second dish with the less nutritional but more tasty chicken scratch feed. Before I do the rooster stands on an edge of the plate and it flips up in the air. If the timing were different by a few seconds, they would be chicken scratch flying everywhere.
As the dish settled I reached in to add the feed and bam. He came at my hand and bit me. I’ve become quite fast around this rooster so it wasn’t a major attack but it did break skin and left a red mark. One point award to the rooster.
I mentioned that I witnessed him being a bit of a bastard this morning. That wasn’t it. What I saw was a rooster that is two main hens, or quiet henchman we call them, work quite content to eat more than half the food between the three of them without him calling his morning breakfast cockadoodledoo.
His main job is to look after the hands although he definitely doesn’t care about the three weak ones that were here before he arrived. It’s just as clear that among the rest he has favorites. This morning I witnessed them pig out at the buffet before telling anyone else about it.
I think that’s mean and if we voted to the main rooster was, I find one to run against him because everyone deserves to know when the food arrives.
I took a special plate with a mixture of pellets and chicken feed back on its own plate into the coop for the rest of them to eat. They didn’t get much time of course before the rooster had to come see what I was doing and eat a portion of their food as well.
Bastard.
