of roosters and chickens

Sigh, chickens may be the earliest domestic animal but man has not bred the wild out of the bird entirely. Even raised from newly hatched with love and care and more love, these birds have eons of instinctual behavior in every gene. Just think of all the sayings we all use that refer to chickens (think pecking order, rules the roost, etc.) It is our first morning without Cinnabon. I will leave you to imagine how that weighs on my heart.

I almost expect to see him walking up the road, coming home to roost once again. He now resides with a neighbor whose property is just visible across the fields from our own. Jake found himself without a rooster but with many fully mature hens. Without describing Cinnabon's confused but tireless journey from innocence to dominance, I will just say his masculine behavior was a bit too savage for the young hens and from Big Guy's point of view, entirely out of line for the mature girls. Cinnabon had to go. And yesterday Jerome delivered him to Jake's hens. If the wind is right and the harvesting machinery is quiet, we will be able to hear Cinnabon's calls. And I suspect he will be able to hear Big Guy as well. I'll miss Cinnabon's beautifully formed cock-a-doodle-doo and the duets between the two of them.  But not the screams of the inexperienced hens or the terror and stress that charged through both flocks. With stress seriously limiting egg production and our juniors ready to lay their first eggs any day now, something had to change. Cinnabon was never aggressive toward people. A bit wary but never a threat. Jake has a middle school son who often is given the job of caring for their chickens. I don't worry in the slightest that Cinnabon will cause him any harm. Some day soon I'll find the courage to walk over to Jake's and see if I can spy Cinnabon among his new harem.
Cinnabon, live long and prosper.