Dispatch 34: What to do when a rooster flies at you?
Editor’s note: Meera dutifully submitted this dispatch in the fall. We haven’t been able to keep up with this prolific writer and are woefully behind in posting, but here is another one of her lovely pieces.
What to do when a rooster flies at you? Duck. What else can you do? Roosters and chickens are moved at night. It’s better to slip them out of one coop and into another when they are half asleep and a little disoriented. Then, when they wake up in the morning, the move is a fait accompli.
However, I discovered that our new, beautiful bantam rooster Franushki didn’t like the trick we had played on him with the coop move. When I went out to feed the chickens and put out fresh water the next morning, he made quite a racket and quickly assessed me as a threat. He flew right past my head. I saw him coming and ducked in the nick of time. After that I kept my guard up.
The new king of the barnyard.
A fine, feathered fowl
True to his word, my neighbor Peter had brought over the new rooster he’d promised after we had to place our previous fellow, the psychologically challenged big Frank, in a new home. I named Frank’s successor Franushki (little Frank).
Talented Franushki has quite a singing voice and awakens us around five-thirty each day with his own variation of cockle-doodle-doo. This little fellow more than makes up for size with his beautiful plumage and the regal way he struts around the farmette.
A rooster S.O.S.
On the third day, Franuschki flew to the top of the five-foot chain-link fence at the back of our property and crowed like he had something to announce. Then he flew down. However, he descended on the wrong side of the fence and couldn’t figure out how he was opposite the hens he was supposed to guard.
I heard him sounding a frantic cockle-doodle-doo: once, twice, and then continuously. I saw the little squirt pacing like a mad man along the property line seemingly trying to remember how he got over there. I opened the gate and let him back in.
A repeat performance
The very next day, he did the same thing. This time, I let him pace for a while. When I saw him high stepping over to my other neighbor’s garden, I quickly helped him find his way back. Since then, he has stopped flying to the high perch on the fence and instead hangs around on our property. The worms over here are just as good and there are plenty of bugs, water, and roaming space. Besides, the hens are on our side.
