Ever since Olive joined the menopausal bunch meaning i had no more laying age buff hens and Sumac turned out to be just Sue, my pipe dream of making Reese’s peanut butter cup chickens come february when their eggs would be large enough to contain a full grown chick, was drifting further away. I still had chocolate hens. If i could get a buff roo, all might not be lost. I could still make chocolate peanut butter colored chickens! I put out a feeler, asking on not one but two nearby county chicken facebook page groups. Now each group services about 5 different cities. So i basically asked 10 towns/cities if anyone had a buff orpington rooster that was not homicidal that they were willing to part with. I’d pay and i’d drive. After 2 weeks one lady answered and said she had a rooster for sale, but from the pictures it was clearly not buff or orpington, which were necessities for me and what i was trying to do. About 3 days in i contacted two people who i knew had raised orpingtons in the past. The one in fredericksburg had moved on. She had cinnamon queens for sale now and was completely done with orpingtons. They’re not for everybody. They’re very friendly and large enough to fight some would be predators and win, but they are not the most intelligent of chicken breeds and ive had trouble with them being false broody. They want to sit on eggs but if a chick emerges, they will kill it. So you tell me, real broody or false broody? Anyways, i love the orpingtons, its my favorite breed. I do not want a chicken who can outsmart me daily. I want one that is not escaping and wants to sit in my lap, and can also maybe kill possums. The contact in mason was still raising orpingtons and said she had a buff roo she was willing to give me. I said id take him and we arranged a date to meet in cherry spring on the side of 87 at the dilapidated old dance hall to do the exchange. We both found the area with no trouble and met right on time. There was a storm coming in. There was lightning and it was kind of starting to rain a bit as we stood and talked between our cars. She transferred a very pretty orangey buff rooster into the dog crate in my car out of the wire rectangle she had him in in her trunk. She said her chickens all had stick tight fleas real bad but she hadnt seen any on the roos as they were in a kill pen, separate from the hens. She said she hadnt seen any wonky temperament things with him but he had been in a pen with all roosters for a while so if he became aggressive or something happened to him and i needed a new roo just call her back and she’d hatch me another one. My previous buff orpington roo had been pretty near cream colored. He was a deep orangey buff. He’d probably make very pretty babies. I hoped he was a nice roo. I also hoped he was healthy. His comb looked nice and red, a great sign! Pretty soon i realized his poops were solid and healthy as could be. No mucus or blood. I drove him to my neighbor’s property and i held him in the yard while she checked all over his head, his comb, his legs, between his toes…looking for stick tight fleas. Id never had them and once you get them, you have to remove everything, including the soil, to get rid of them. I had read that eggs and larvae were laid in bedding and soil and only adults were present on the bird’s body. Still, it would take 41 days for a stick tight flea egg to mature to adulthood. I had plans to keep the rooster in a dog crate in the house with me and the two dogs for 41 days, until i knew i wasnt introducing new ailments to my chickens like the white settlers brought small pox to the native americans. I wasnt sure if i was going to make it 41 days with a rooster in the house but for the sake of generations of hens health i had to try.
Upon acquiring Buddy i was immediately impressed. He didnt like to be chased and picked up but once picked up he just sat there like a football and quit fighting until you put him down. He was quiet the whole ride back and only squawked when someone opened the trunk. He would sometimes sooth if you talked to him and cock his head as if listening or trying to figure you out, and if he could get away rather than face you, he would. He was escape over fight. This was a good sign. I needed him not to try to kill me upon sight every day like the old rooster years ago. I made a conscious effort not to force anything or provoke him in any way, allowing him to move away from me when uncomfortable. I didnt want to corner him into putting his dukes up and get him aggressive.
The first night with us, Buddy wouldnt eat. He just sat. I think he was scared. But, his previous owner told me he was days from being culled in a kill pen with roosters that did get culled, so the life i had designed for him here with his little flock of soon to be hens seemed a much better option for him than certain death in mason. I decided he’d settle in soon enough. At night, he didnt crow, so in the beginning the dogs liked him and guarded Buddy by sleeping near his crate. They sniffed him through the bars and he looked at them. He would just sort of slump over towards the ground and go to sleep.
beautiful…hoping for no flea eggs…..