Bye Bye Bread

We had to say goodbye to the cockerels. They had reached sexual maturity and were causing havoc amongst the girls as well as becoming aggressive towards us. As a human female I must say their mating ritual left a lot to be desired. There was no beautiful display, or trying to impress a hen until she was receptive and accepting - oh no. They would sidle up to an oblivious hen, do a sideways stomp and a kind of flamenco move with one wing and then hop on. That was as seductive as it got. Another method was to suddenly spot a hen they fancied meandering round the corner, take a great stomping run and jump and land on top of her. The girls were beginning to look haggard and the worse for wear.

Interestingly, each cockerel had a type of hen it was attracted to. Poor Henrietta was a favourite of Penguin, the most brutish cockerel. She eventually had to be coaxed out of bed in the morning and then escorted past him at night to get back into bed. One time I went round to a lot of squawking to find her wedged between a tree trunk and the wire fence of the run, with her head through the bars, and Penguin from the top of the tree trunk STILL trying to jump on her.

Another interesting and heartening observation was how the other hens would leap to the defence of one of their sisters by pecking a cockerel off. I gave those girls extra grapes as a reward.

The only cockerel I did have a wee cry over was Bread. I know he had to go. He was HUGE. But until he fully matured he was my favourite boy. He would sing to me and settle down while I cuddled him. But in the end even he was looking at me as if about to attack, and his size in comparison to some of the hens (poor, tiny Squeaky Cheese caught his fancy) was untenable. That's testosterone for you.