The Travails of Cocky-Do
A few years ago, friends gifted us with their extra rooster, Charlie. He started out life as their cosseted pet pullet Charlotte. Then as he matured, his sexual identity became clear.
He grew into the image of the splendid rooster decorations found in farmhouse-themed kitchens throughout the land. In the midst of his colorful red presence, he managed to maintain his sweet personality. Based upon my profound distrust of free-ranging roosters, he graced our electrified poultry-netting pen, with several hens for company. He was literally a hen-pecked husband, standing aside for the girls to grab the choicest morsels.
Our two-year-old granddaughter Sara christened Charlie “Cocky-Do” in toddler-speak. During chores most mornings, after I unplugged the fence, I would lift her over the netting ahead of me. Although approaches from the neighbor’s visiting rooster had sparked tears, she would charge confidently through Cocky-Do’s domain, looking for the eggs the hens worked hard to hide.
Last year, our elderly neighbor, Mr. W, ventured into chicken-keeping. We had noticed him constructing something on his side of our pasture fence. After learning it was a chicken coop, we started him off with two young cockerels, Charlie’s progeny. Eventually, Mr. W added some hens. His intrepid little black hen escaped to nest in the property-line cedars on our side of the boundary fence. When her first brood hatched, we helped Mr. W’s family herd them to their side of the fence. Since, she has hatched out another brood…and another.
Probably partly as a result of “Mama Hen’s” prodigiously successful mothering, last summer Mr. W became overwhelmed with poultry keeping. Deciding it was time to get out of the chicken business (his wife preferred store-bought eggs anyway) he called to tell us to come get any of his chickens we could use. I had already been wanting a few more hens both to free-range and in our poultry pen.
Thus, after dark one July evening, DJ and I squished around in the overrun coop as Mr. W supervised. We gathered up Mama Hen and her current brood of 10. We also grabbed five of her half-grown set from the first hatching, two Americauna “Easter-Eggers” and two red hens flecked with white.
So far, so good. Of the adolescents, four matured into black hens reminiscent of their Copper Maran mama. The fifth began to grow into a young version of Charlie. The young cockerel seemed content to guard over his contingent of hens while Charlie hung out with his original three.
Then came trouble. A grown replica of Charlie appeared, one of the original young roosters we had gifted our neighbor, apparently lonely following the exodus of most of his flock. Mr. W indicated he wasn’t up to doing anything about it, and expressed he would be happy if we could. However, with DJ still recovering from surgery, I had more than enough to keep up with. The neighbor rooster poked around, but wasn’t really causing trouble. Dealing with him thus slid down our list of priorities. Thus, “Romeo” continued to linger.
Then on an especially busy day, I noted Romeo actually in the pen with Charlie and his hens. Side by side, Charlie and Romeo (his son?) looked just about identical, except that Romeo was missing several tail feathers.
The next day I heard a ruckus in the chicken pen. When I hurried to check, Charlie was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Romeo strutted about, king of the chicken pen. Apparently he had driven poor peace-loving Charlie to flight out of the electric poultry netting fence, and taken over.
Furious, that night I swept Romeo off his roost, thrust him into a cage, and asked DJ to drop him off at the farm store, available for the next someone in need of a rooster.
“Are you sure you don’t want to keep him instead, if Charlie’s gone?” DJ asked. “He seems like a nice rooster too.”
“No!” I shot back, still angry on Charlie’s behalf. “Hopefully Charlie will come back if this one is out of the way.”
Days passed. Charlie didn’t reappear. Mr. W hadn’t seen him, but as he is legally blind that didn’t mean much. We peeked through the fence at his remaining flock. The only comparable rooster was missing ALL his tail feathers. Then I remembered the rooster’s reproachful surprised gaze as he departed our pen for the farm store. Could it be that Charlie had won the set-to with Romeo, and in the process both had lost tail feathers?
Oops. I asked DJ to check with the farm store about reclaiming our rooster—what if it was actually Charlie mistakenly sent away in disgrace?—but someone was already picking him up that afternoon.
For some time, life went on without Cocky-Do. The young cockerel was growing up, happy to take charge of the pen.
Then, last week, Cocky-Do reappeared. Seeming happy to be back and displaying his full complement of tail feathers, he promptly displaced the young cockerel.
Charlie? Romeo? We may never know. Meanwhile, Cocky- Do once more rules the roost.