I have mentioned that Buffy, our Buff Orpington rooster, takes good care of his girls and that on two occasions I incubated eggs successfully. The incubator takes 7 eggs and each time there were 4 viable chicken and each time it was 3 hens and one rooster. And each time, as the young rooster grew up, friction developed between dad and son, and son and all the hens.
We are very lucky to have a chicken enthusiast down the road from us who happily took Buff, the first young rooster and we see him most every time we drive to our farm. He is inevitably surrounded by his girls and also seems to get on well with the turkeys since he is fairly large, aggressive and undaunted.
We had wanted to keep the second young rooster who is named Gus after his mom Gimpie but concluded it wouldn’t work out. Gimpie is the senior hen (in pecking order) and has a bad hip which makes it difficult to walk, hence her name. On sunny days she gets out of the coop and in the evening the routine now is she waits for me to pick her up and carry her back to the coop. I always deposit her just before the door so Buffy does not see me carrying her. It is a practice with Buffy that if anyone has contact with one of his hens he has to immediately mount the hen and this is one more ordeal Gimpie would rather avoid. So Gimpie is a toughie and yesterday she laid her first egg of the year and Gus inherited her good genes and most of her coloring with just some gold around the neck from his dad.
I contacted the chicken enthusiast about Gus and to our delight she said she was so happy with Buff (our first young rooster) that she offered to take Gus as well, which she did last weekend. And now order is restored and the Americauna who is first generation like Gimpie and who had sat in the nest box the past month to avoid the attentions of Gus, is going out of the coop every day and is also back in egg production. Goodbye Gus and hope to see you when we drive by your new home.