A Fistful of Hot Cocks

Well, that should make the referrers amusing for the next ten years or so.

My chicks came yesterday, WOO! I called the post office when it was getting late, and the clerk told me they put the chicks on the mail truck. Uh…Woo, still? That seemed a little weird, but okay. I knew the truck usually comes between four and five which means they probably spent most of the day on the truck, bump bump peep, assuming my mailman started in the morning. When he saw me on my front lawn waiting like some sad, desperate beagle or something, he honked and I ran over.

“Do you know what this is?” he said, holding a box of PEEP PEEP PEEP WE ARE COLD chicks sideways and waggling them at me.

“Yes!” I said, and thrust out my grabby paw for the box. I got them into the house as quickly as I could…and then… POP.

WHAT THE FUCKTACOS there were 25 birds in this box. I ordered ten pullets. I looked at the invoice. There was a menacing notice rubber stamped on it in red ink. “Males included for warmth, Thank you.”

Fifteen roosters. Fifteen of these orangey guys. Maybe one or two is mis-sexed and is a pullet by accident, but I very much doubt it. I offered to pay the extra fees to just have ten shipped. I said “PLZ NO ROOSTERS THEY ARE ILLEGALS HERE.”

I’m going to need more brooders, more waterers, etc. And there will be lots of boys in the freezer in a few weeks, I think, especially when crowing kicks in. Is ordering exactly the sexed chickens you want such a smokin deal when they send you FIFTEEN BOYS, I ask you.

I have TOO MANY CHICKENS, Y’ALL.

Mère supervises while my sister holds her.

Strudel admires my naked neck pullet.

So, for the chickeny people who are interested, I got 4 easter eggers, because we love our Calliope so, a naked neck, a Rhode Island white, a black Jersey giant, an ancona, and a silver Kraienkoppe. You know I like to roll fancy. I also got an Australorp, which I had a couple of 4 million years ago, but you know what, she up and cacked it this morning. She was a weak one. Sad, though.

The girls were slightly appalled I put her in the yard waste bin, but my philosophy is that I had known her for less than a day, and she is made of chicken…which I often put in the yard waste bin. Nature is a cruel mistress and I’m her pimp.

22 thoughts on “A Fistful of Hot Cocks

  1. Oh I should’ve warned you that the chicken shippers pack boxes with males when you order in under-25 quantities. My mother had to kill 13 roosters. Sadface.

  2. Halo–boy, I hope so! If not it will be just like chickens, only smaller.

    Styro, thanks, but they said if I wanted fewer I could request and pay extra. I wasn’t just trying to pull some chicken diva shit. This is unideal. Ah well.

  3. “I have TOO MANY CHICKENS, Y’ALL.”

    That is not a sentence I expected to have in my life today. Today is a good day?

  4. OH BOY CHICKENS! :D :D :D

    Somebody had a rooster in the neighborhood I grew up in. It was irritating as shit. Little fucker would crow all night long.

  5. Oy, i did not mean to imply chicken-diva-ness. I just know some hatcheries are real assholes about the rooster-box-stuffing. (COUGHMcMurrayCOUGH)

    So here is a hilarious story, to make up for my accidental toe-stepping. So my mother ordered 3 dozen hens, 12 black star, 12 red star, 12 pearl leghorns. And she pays her moneys and she says sexed hens only and she says no roosters, and they are like YUP and they send two boxes, 25 chicks each. Which, my mom was like, “huh, that’s weird, I only ordered 36 chicks but I got 50. Weird.” And then she sees the HA HA YOU GOTS YOU SOME ROOSTERS YO note. Bummer.

    So you know, she lets them grow up because she’s never had roosters, and she’s on 20 acres and whatever, right? It’ll be fine! Roosters! Cock-a-doodle-doo! Except the chicken rape is like unbearable. The hens are all bald and miserable, there’s a rooster fight like every day, the noise and aggression is unbearable. So mom goes reading on the intarwebs on how one would dispose of 13 roosters, and she finally finds a method that she thinks she can handle. So she drinks a glass of wine to fortify her nerves, and then what the fuck, finishes the bottle because chicken killin’ is hard work, and she’s gonna have to do it 13 times.

    So she goes out into the coop, and she grabs the first rooster by the feet and she holds him upside down to let the blood rush to his head. The instructions say to lay his head on the ground, place a broomstick over the neck, stand on either end of the broomstick and yank on the feet: quick dislocation of the neck, sever the spinal cord, bing-bam-boom, done. Except the first yank, she’s not sure, and she’s a little drunk, and it’s dark in the coop, so she yanks again.

    And his head pops off.

    She calls me 2 minutes later, sobbing and hysterical about ROOSTER MURDER and oh man, it was so sad but christ it was also so unintentionally funny.

    Sorry for comment-jack. Please do not use broom-stick method unless you are prepared to call me for counseling afterwards.

  6. We could figure out a way to accommodate if you’d rather get rid of them now. And/or help with The Deed when it comes time, chez vous. We’re pros at this point.

    Bummer about the Australorp. Ours have been total champs; one is our oldest hen and the only one left from the original flock 4 springs ago. She raised us up a batch of little babies last spring when we got her some fertile eggs to sit on. Then from last year’s batch one of the Australorp babbies turned out to be a rooster, who we kept because he is not illegals here, and he is VERY handsome and he takes good care of all the ladies. He looks like this! http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2041131240039935034MblPbw

  7. Nooo Styro, no harm no fowl. Har har. Chicken sex is horrifying. Thanks for the story.

    And I love coq au vin, surprising no one.

  8. I feel like a bad person for coming back for another round of chicken comments and laughing hysterically at rooster murder… out damn spot.

  9. Omg I love reading your chicken stories and comments. Tears in the eyes, I’m telling ya. No harm, no fowl. AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

    We just got a law passed in our territory and we can have three chickens in the back yard now. HA! Take that, annoying neighbor. You thought the dogs were bad? Mwah hahah.
    Nah, not really. Chickens make nice noises, as long as they’re hens, right? I’m going to fence them up in the garden, away from the hounds. That could work. They can do the bug plucking, right?
    I’ll be back for advice.

  10. I think they make nice noises, personally. They cackle when they are laying and otherwise kind of mutter to themselves about worms and sky and OH GOD THAT CLOUD MOVED AGAIN. They scream when they are in trouble. My grass ends up a luscious green and they keep weeds down.

  11. I spent a good few years on a farm in California living with my aunt and uncle. They had a couple roosters. MEAN roosters; but they’re all mean, aren’t they? Why they kept them around, I DO NOT KNOW. Eventually, one ran away but the other hung around. It was my job and sometimes my cousin’s to feed the chickens and collect eggs and damn if that rooster didn’t make our lives a LIVING HELL. It would wait and jump on us and we were always scratched. We finally both said NO MORE CHICKEN DUTY and my uncle had to take over. Sometimes that rooster got loose in the yard and we’d hear someone screaming GIRLS GET DOWN and we’d know it meant to drop on the ground and cover our heads so the monster wouldn’t scratch our eyes out. ANYWAY, my uncle only lasted a week on chicken duty before the rooster finally drove him over the edge. One morning it DROPPED OUT OF THE COOP RAFTERS on my uncle and he grabbed the thing, slammed it into a wall and then took it outside to the stump in the yard and beheaded the thing RIGHT THERE. My cousin and I saw the whole thing. Freakin’ rooster even did the headless run for a bit.

    We ate it for dinner that night and it was the MOST GOD AWFUL TOUGH BIRD I have ever eaten.

    True story.

  12. Roosters are SO EVIL! I agree. Well, most of them. The barred cochin we gave away, Marty McFly, was apparently such a sweet cuddly guy the girls of the family fell in love and they did not eat him.

    This kamikaze rooster, my god!

    JB, sounds good. We should email about this. I am thinking late April. They will not be full grown, but I cannot risk the crowing!

  13. Oh my. I confess, I ROFFLED. If I was in your position (but over here, of course) it would probably be pretty easy to give the roosters away to someone who lives in a township where goats, cows, horses and chickens pretty much live wherever the owner wants them to…

    I am thinking of ordering some from these people as soon as we get a Chicken Hotel sorted out, I am rather loving the idea of the Polish Bantams as “Doesn’t Damage Plants” is a plus:

    http://guineaglen.wordpress.com/chickens/

  14. Sounds good.
    Drop me a line any time.
    Just give me some time to clear my calender, and probably arrange a time when the girls are away.

  15. Sweet! Will do. Would love to have another person there.

    Spacey: Polishes are VERY sweet. I suspect they don’t damage plants because their headfeathers blind them. I used to trim mine so she could see.

  16. Depending on timing, we could come help too, if it would be of use. We are pros at this point. I don’t remember if you have had to do the deed before?

    I really hate plucking by hand though. :(

  17. I have killed roosters, but never butchered, no. Help would be great, if you’re up for it. I could make sandwiches and get some soda, it could be a very smelly and bloody party. :D

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