Moroni, Mighty Rooster, sent to the chopping block.

Yesterday morning, I was out feeding animals and planting pumpkins before heading to Wellsville for Amber's Shakespeare play, when I heard Lisa(10) crying. The kids were all panicked and I asked what happened. "The rooster jumped on me," she said, and I could see two places he broke the skin. "That's it," I concluded, "Moroni will have to join Pacumeni in the freezer. I'm calling Ej." So, I contacted our fourteen-year-old neighbor, who willingly came over to kill and gut and pluck our friend, Moroni. It was very sad. He was such a beautiful animal. But he had chased Rachel across the yard a few days ago and I told him that he had one more chance before he would meet the ax. He blew it by jumping on Lisa. He actually scratched her with his claws and pecked her with his beak... and drew blood. I didn't think he was capable of such an act, but now he is in our freezer. Fried chicken, anyone?

Lisa recovered just fine. She put about 10 little bandaids on her leg to cover the "holes." The five hens left are all docile and never aggressive, so we'll still let them out to lay their eggs under the slide and in the hay barn... and to eat all the bugs in the yard. We are getting 4 to 5 eggs a day now and have experienced two double-yokes so far... they are huge!--like a goose egg! It is so fun to go out in the late morning and find three eggs nestled in the grass under the slide, and then look all around the hay in the barn for more. The hens spend the night in the hen house every night, yet they never lay there. Every morning, they are waiting at the door to the chicken run for me to let them out. I'm usually out by 7am and when I open the door, they run out to the compost pile first thing, then scratch all around the yard. In the evening as the sun goes down, they wait at the entrance to the chicken run for me to let them back in, then they climb in their hen house and rest for the night. We get a kick out of those hens. I think they will miss the roosters the most. They really enjoyed having them around. I think the roosters contributed the most to our increase in egg-laying. I wonder if our eggs will decrease... I'll let you know.

We have at least 2 male chicks, so the roosters will soon be replaced by them, but they should be more gentle having been handled by us and being raised in this environment. When I spoke with the previous owner of Moroni and Pacumeni, she was surprised that they attacked children, but agreed that since they did they belong in the freezer. They must have just felt like they needed to "protect" the hens from those dangerous "giants." Anyway, that saga is over now... but there are definitely more adventures to come!