Throwaway Roosters

On Saturday as I was driving  down the hill I noticed three roosters huddled by the side of the road, they were good looking boys and had obviously been dumped.

As I drove, I thought about the poor roosters and I thought about the rotten bloody mongrel asshat that had just dumped them there.

There is a growing trend here in Tasmania of dumping unwanted roosters by the side of the road, in the bush or at the local tip. And I think it is apalling.

I place the blame firmly at the door of weekend hobby farmers, tree changers, and their ilk. Enticed by the thought of lovely fresh eggs, from free range chickens these people get a couple of hens and a rooster and their life is just so happy happy joy joy.

Until the hens go broody and suddenly a couple of hens have bred you fifteen new roosters who crow their bloody heads off  at first light. And oh my what are Mr and Mrs sensitive new ager to do with all these noisy unproductive  roosters?

Instead of doing the right thing by their animals they bloody well dump them and it makes me so angry.

My freecycle feed at certain times of the year is full of giveaway roosters, with a stipulation of pets only or not for the pot. It is a sad thing to see. Roosters generally do not make good pets, they do not play nicely with other roosters and they are noisy, oh so noisy.

Yesterday I heard the roosters crowing, so I put some layer pellets into a bucket and walked down the hill through the bush. If I stood on a stump I could see the roosters down in the gully. They had stayed where they had been dumped for four days. On one of those four days we had a good dump of snow. It is a hard life for an abandoned animal.

Being a chook whisperer from way back I was hoping if I stood on the side of the bank and yelled “chook, chook, chook” as I rattled the bucket of food the roosters would find me.

And sure enough one did.

He followed me back up the hill and I locked him in my empty chook run.

By four o’clock that afternoon he had called the other two roosters up the hill as well and I now had three fine looking boys in the chook pen.

My chook pen is adjacent to our vegetable garden and when I only had one old Isa brown girl a few years ago, we removed the divider so that she could get into the veggie garden and deal with the slater beetles for me.

The Spouse who adores me, but hates chickens with a fiery passion was not very impressed to find three large roosters scratching the buggery out of his garden beds.

All I could see when I looked at the roosters was , how handsome they were and how young and tasty two of them would be.

All the Spouse could see was WORK, for him.

Work, fixing the divider and stringing a new top layer of chicken wire across the fence.

Work, fixing up the garden beds.

Work, killing and cleaning the two roosters that I could not keep.

To say that The Spouse was a tad grumpy last night is akin to saying  Mt Everest is  a bit of a tricky climb.

Because “The Universe” disguised as an asshat poultry owner had given me a lovely rooster I asked on facebook for a couple of hens to keep the chosen rooster company.

I will be picking up two hens, one black and one white, from a friend on Thursday.

The Spouse is not impressed.

But I am content.