R.I.P. Randy the Rooster

Now that the required period of mourning is over, it is time to tell the tale of the sad end to the life of Randy the Rooster. It all started with my decision to enact some "tough love" and force my chickens to forage for some of their own food. Their period of molting had gone on for nearly three months, foiling my master plan that they earn their own keep, meaning bags of Purina Layena from Tractor Supply. Never mind that I had probably $1000 invested in the henhouse, feeders, waterers, essential chicken-keeping gadgets and assorted fencing. I needed to sell enough eggs to make that $13 every three weeks or so, plus all the eggs we wanted to eat ourselves.

The last straw was when I had to BUY eggs to make my daughter’s birthday cake in early November. Despite my fears about roving hawks and eagles, I opened the door to the chicken yard a sunny Saturday and one by one, the hens cautiously bobbed their way outside. Randy and I regarded each other cautiously. I stood my ground, quaking a bit inside, memories of my brother’s demon silky bantam still quite vivid. Strutting over to the open door from the far side of the yard, Randy suddenly sidestepped and quickly made his way over to a tantalizing green patch about 10 feet away. My butterflies calmed; a victory over childhood fears.

So it went for several days. Although November, it was still warm enough to do a few outside garden chores. As I pulled up frost-killed tomato plants and stacked tomato cages, I enjoyed the friendly company of my clucking hens and concluded this was the relationship I was supposed to have with my flock. The kids’ interest in the chickens was renewed, and they enjoyed sprinkling scratch corn on the ground and watching the hens come running. Randy kept his distance, asserting his control by standing statue-like, observant, chest out.

About a week later, my daughter’s desire to pet one of the hens got the best of her. She crept quietly to the far side of the coop, where the hens scratched happily in the pine needles beneath the trees. She had only just touched a soft, feathered back with one hand when Randy flew at her. I can only imagine that the shrillness of her scream—which I heard from inside the closed house—terrified him as much as she was terrified. Unhurt, she ran to me and described the offenses of the accused in heart-wrenching terms. I was irritated at Randy’s misbehavior spoiling my plans to have true free-range chickens. But attacking a petite preteen was even worse. Don’t mess with my baby.

Still unsure what action to take, I released the chickens only while the kids were in school. Over the summer I had experimented with a rotating chicken yard extension using rebar and light plastic fencing. There was no way I could let them roam free with so many tasty leafy greens and vegetables waiting in the garden. Unfortunately, my “temporary” fence had to be moved every five days or so. The chickens’ habit of incessant scratching lay 100 square feet of lawn bare in no time. A mid-summer drought killed off most of the grass in the area adjacent the coop and by September the chickens were back to their confined yard, contenting themselves with ample tomato peels and other scraps from my end-of-season canning.

So, I continued to let the flock out on days when I could be home to observe and supervise. It was then that Randy’s truly nasty disposition became evident. Poultry experts in my Backyard Poultry magazine have described the protective nature of roosters, their calls to warn the hens of impending danger, their habit of allowing the others to partake of the choicest treats first. I saw no such behavior. Instead, Randy would peck at the hens in order to steal a soft tomato. Although I am well-aware that poultry mating rituals are anything but gentle, Randy would appear domineering even when he was not doing his business. The girls ran from him, cackling in fear.

A neighbor teased me for my skittishness around Randy. She would bring huge of buckets of vegetable scraps over to the chickens almost daily, and I marveled at how she simply opened the door to the yard and tossed them in. I had to dump my scraps from above through a flap in the netting that covered the top; otherwise Randy would rush the door to attack me. Once, I slammed my own hand in the wire door in an attempt to protect myself. I should have recognized that it was only a matter of time before Randy extended his dominion over the entire back yard and not just the portion to which he was formerly confined.

One fine afternoon in early December, I let the chickens out to forage for the last of the broccoli stalks and whatever patches of clover they could find. I brought a cup of scratch and tossed it well away from their coop so I could retrieve their feeder for refilling. Eager to keep my truce with Randy, I did not want to encroach on his space or pose any kind of threat to his hens. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them all pecking away happily as I walked back with a full feeder in one hand and a bucket of shredded paper for bedding in the other. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my knee and turned to see Randy, feathers ruffled, ready to fly at me again with spurs forward.

I dropped the feeder and placed the bucket between me and my attacker. My instincts told me that running was futile, for I had observed Randy’s overly large drumsticks as he ran to take a worm away from a hen. I backed as fast as I could toward the house—a distance of about 40 feet—meanwhile fending off at least five additional attacks. Slamming the back door quickly behind me, I limped into my office and pulled up my pant leg to assess the damage. Randy had put about a ½ inch deep puncture on the side of my right knee, through my thick, flannel-lined jeans. Thoughts of chicken poop and salmonella led me to the bathroom, where I poured hydrogen peroxide into the wound and marveled at how much it hurt.

My adrenaline had kicked in. The school bus was due in about 5 minutes and there was no way I was going to allow a bully rooster to go after my chicks. I donned thick leather gloves, grabbed a shovel just outside and headed out the front door to the driveway. Randy was nowhere in sight. The kids arrived home safely and listened wide-eyed to my story. I must have had a crazed look, because they kept their distance and quietly went into their rooms. I stood at my office window overlooking the garden and chicken coop and tried to decide whether to kill Randy then, or later.

In the end, I decided my aim was too bad to go back out and take Randy on in shovel-to-spur combat. I called my husband, Carl, told him my story, and reasoned that we would wait until they settled in on the roost for the night. At that point I wanted him to grab Randy for me. I would do the deed, I assured him, but only after he was captive. I planned to try the old neck-under-the-broomstick method I’d read about. Just pin their necks down with one foot on either side of the broom and pull up on the feet. Easy. No blood. Then, I would finally try butchering a chicken myself. If I messed it up, nicked a bowel or something, it was only an old rooster after all.

Carl arrived home early, a man on a mission. Before I could get my boots back on, he was after Randy with a stick, and had much better aim than I. But roosters are resilient and fast, and Randy took off across the yard toward the next-door neighbors, legs pumping furiously. Suffering from a post-Thanksgiving gout flare-up, Carl was even less mobile than me with my injured knee. What it sight it must have been to see the two of us, bearing shovel and net, limping across the front yard after Randy like the crazy guy in The Shining. For a moment, we almost trapped him near the door to the neighbor’s basement, but he somehow escaped the net and ran cackling into the woods behind our houses.

I was relieved. Some critter would get him during the night and I wouldn’t have to perpetrate an ugly revenge killing. It’s one thing to neatly butcher your animals for meat, another to hunt them down in anger. The next morning, I peered outside to see if Randy had somehow managed to find his way back to the coop, but there was no sign of him. Carl left for work, but called only a few minutes later: Randy had emerged from his wooded hiding place and was strutting along the roadside. The neighborhood children were all about to head out to wait for the bus.

Hastily throwing on a coat over my pajamas, I armed myself with the shovel and walked out the end of the driveway with the kids. Sure enough, there was Randy. A passing truck had scared him over to the opposite side of the road, where he jauntily strode across an open field toward the daycare two houses over. It suddenly dawned on me that I had to warn people. All I needed was for my aggressive ‘roo to attack some small child. That was what led to the death of my brother’s silky. On the very day new neighbors from the “city” moved in next to my parents, the bantam attacked their four-year old. I think it only horrified them further when we killed and ate him.

I called the neighbor with the daycare, who fortunately has quite a menagerie of animals herself, and had once owned chickens. She said she would let the parents know that they shouldn’t allow their toddlers to try and pet the little chickie. Next, I phoned my nearest neighbor, who promptly laughed and asked if we wanted to borrow his 22 or if he should ‘plug’ Randy for us. Not necessary, I said. I went back outside to find the lady who lived across the field in her bathrobe shooing Randy away from her house.

“You better leave him alone,” I yelled from across the road. “He might attack you!”

“I’m worried the dogs might get him,” she called. They have a half dozen or more retrievers and coon dogs.

“Let them!” I hollered. Randy continued across the field and disappeared.

All day long, I peered outside my window at the coop, thinking perhaps he would try to return to his hens. About mid-day, I saw the lady from across the road walking down the driveway, white bucket in hand. “Sorry. Our hunting dog got him.”

I was jubilant. “Oh, it’s o.k. He had to go.” I peered into the bucket, and was disappointed. “You cleaned him? You know how to do that?!”

“Well, I’ve cleaned plenty of wild game. But I had a hard time getting the feathers off his wings, so I just cut the tips off. And his neck is still attached.”

I pondered whether to ask her for evisceration lessons. “That’s o.k. I’ll clean him up.” We said our goodbyes. It was the first time we had met face to face, other than to wave from the car. I brought Randy inside and got out a boning knife and a cutting board. All in all, he didn’t look too bad. Not a tooth mark on him. No pinfeathers remained. The worst thing was that his neck stretched out before him, making him appear as aggressive in death as he did in life. I had a devil of a time cutting the neck off neatly. I think rigor mortis had started to set in. Although I was a little sorry I hadn’t gotten the chance to pluck and gut him, mostly I was glad it was all over. And, after all, it’s not every day when your neighbor returns your rooster to you in a bucket, fully dressed for cooking.

Online instructions from backyardpoultry.com informed me that I needed to wait two days for the butchered chicken to “relax” before cooking. In the meantime, I planned my meal. Thinking, like any good foodie, “What would Julia [Child] do?” I decided that coq au vin would be my dish of choice, stewed in wine and broth, the perfect use for an older chicken. Randy was large and meaty, unlike the Delaware hens I’d had butchered the year before. The aroma from the simmering pot of meat was very appetizing, although the meat seemed a bit dark, perhaps from the wine. As we all cut into our portion, one thing became apparent: Randy was as tough in death as he was in life. This was perhaps the biggest disappointment of all. Each of us bravely, almost ritualistically, ate a few bites, then the rest of Randy went into the trash. Truly, a sad ending.

I am trying my best to be politically correct and not make any snap judgments about roosters, even though I have never known a ‘nice’ rooster. Randy was just a bad seed (egg?), not a reflection of all roosters, but a bird who made poor choices in his life, choices that brought him to a bad end. Make of this what you will, but prior to Randy’s departure my hens had slowed to laying 1 or 2 eggs a week. For three days after his death, I collected an egg a day, then three and then four. I have consistently gathered five to seven eggs daily ever since. Coincidence or feminist poultry statement? I, for one, feel a greater sense of liberty, like a dark cloud has lifted.

In the power vacuum formed since Randy's sudden disappearance, my dominance over the hens has been confirmed. Each time I go in to the backyard and croon a low "chick-a-chick," my girls come running. The pied piper of hens, I stroll about the backyard, flock following me frantically. To be honest, the first time they started running after me (or perhaps the cup of corn I held), I was a bit scared--Randy flashbacks, you know. Now, I strut about confidently. When it is time for them to go inside at the end of the day, I stand by their yard door and call out to them gently but insistently. Obediently, they all file into the coop.

I am the egg (wo)man. They are my hens. I am the rooster. Cock-a-doodle doo!