Week 33, Day 3 (Fare thee well, Brooster)

The rooster was returned to his owner yesterday, and now I am wracked with guilt and yeah, a little bit of annoyance too.

We only had this rooster on loan, see, as he's a Barred Rock, and I quite fancied putting something nice like him over my mottly group of hens. We got precisely one chick out of him (to a Bantam, no less!!!) before his owner started asking for his return.

We stalled as much as possible, hoping that when the girls went back on the lay in spring, he'd do his thing, we'd get some babies, and all would be well and dandy.

But then, Brooster (short for Big Red Rooster .. most of our roosters get called this) decided to get a bit carried away with 4am yodelfests, and I lost patience.

So yesterday, Brooster was duly deposited back on the farm he came from, whereby he decided to challenge the last remaining rooster. For a time I thought Brooster was going to be Cock-o-the-walk, but age conquered attitude in the end.

Given that chooks invented the pecking order, I wasn't too worried about this. After all, we've had lots of roosters in our flock over the years, and apart from the odd flurry of feathers and fisticuffs, they tend to get along okay once they've sorted out whose bigger, meaner and snottier than the next bird.

Much like hens do, actually.

But the owner has other ideas. Now I'm not 100% sure he wasn't pulling my chain (he's like that) but he announced "loser becomes Sunday roast".

The only thing that stopped me taking Brooster back home again was the reality of the hot day, and how cruel it is to put a creature in a box in your boot while you spend the day in town. He'd disliked the 1 hour trip to the farm as it was, poor old featherface.

Let's hope Dave was enjoying some savage humour at my expense, and that Brooster is still alive and scratching. Good grief.. why did he want the bird BACK if he was just going to snuff him? If that's all he wanted, I'd have spent $8 at the supermarket & fixed the problem of the Sunday roast.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not some lily-livered wilting violet who gives animals names then can't eat them ;-) Quite the opposite in fact. I culled my first sheep for the table at the age of 16, and you get over being squeamish pdq when you're handed a sharp knife and told to get on with it.

But I don't like waste. A big, friendly, healthy rooster is too good to just chuck away.

...oo0oo...

On a brighter note, today was a very good day to be browsing on Trade Me. I've got a wooden cot for $60, and a car seat for $100 - both in very good nick and good for many years yet. Given that we thought we'd have to pay $250+ for a cot and the same again for a car seat, that's money to put aside for a mountain buggy (a pram is utterly useless when you live on a farm with lots of stony ground).

Now all I need are a couple of nappy stackers, some toiletries, some more bibs, and a mattress cover. Oh yeah, and the baby ;-)

(And just to remind he, he's woken up and started to play. Awww...)