Rooster-less Farm

We are officially without a rooster now.

I think it was last Friday, my wife had the girls (ages 5 and 8) go into the chicken and duck pens to help her get the eggs. The ducks were fine of course, but the Rooster saw the 5 year old and went for her. My wife was right there, but it pecked the little girls arm hard enough to require a band aid.

Foul animals are not allowed here (pun intended) whether it be a nasty ram, dog or duck.

We deliberately got the breed of chickens we do have based on temperament wanting the kids to be a part of farm life, but when the rooster went off, well so did its head with an ax and got tossed onto he coyote bait pile! So we are now officially a rooster-less farm!!

O you horrible cruel person!! And to think shooting squirrels is a no no! I can't wait till the animal lovers in here get hold of this! An axe no less! Did you blindfold him? NO! He had to see it coming dont you think? The horror! And tossed unceremoniously into a pile of refuse designated to be used as bait! I think you need some sensitivity training! Did you spank the little girl for not going into advanced avoidance mode? For taunting the poor rooster? How do you know she didn't instigate it? May have given him the old chop across the throat sign when the wife wasn't looking. What about that? Huh?

Kevin

whew, I'm tired after that.

Oh ! Man, You just screwed youself out of gov funding to study why roosters go wild. A study like that has to be worth millons.

Learning something about animal instinct might help us to understand our own blind ignorance. But as they say ignorance is bliss except if and when it leads to the suicide of mankind through that very lack of understanding.

Poor rooster was just doing his "other" job. Protecting his girls.

All I can think about is a nice crock pot of chicken / vegetable soup with broad noodles. That rooster would have served me well for a couple of days.

If you lived in MA, you'd be required to contact the EPA, DEH, & DPS & report a large chicken blood spill.

God help you if it reaches a storm drain .....

The cock lost his head

Sorry you had to say good bye to Mr Rooster, but, well, rules are rules! An axe is a very humane way. When I was a kid we had a widow neighbor that would do in a dozen chickens every now & then. The ol' lady would make a tiny temporary pen & toss in a dozen or so chickens. Then for 10 minutes it was grab & chop, grab & chop. They'd sometimes run around like, well, as they say, a chicken with its head cut off.

Geeze, I thought we were the only town with a coyote bait pile.

I'm with you....animals on our property don't get a second chance. If one of our dogs ever bites a human, it's the last human they bite. There's no "Ohhh, the dog was protecting...."

Scottscoaled wrote:Poor rooster was just doing his "other" job. Protecting his girls.

That's the point, and we have a long way to go in seeing the point of our own behavior.

..oh poor foghorn leghorn.....I, I, say now bouy ...I say now bouy what yah gonna' gonnah' do with that there a...............................cricket sounds.......

SMITTY wrote:If you lived in MA, you'd be required to contact the EPA, DEH, & DPS & report a large chicken blood spill.

God help you if it reaches a storm drain .....

and dont forget the DEP You MUST submit your permit fee to all the above mentioned agency's to the tune of $462.57 in order to fund the Gov. studies of "why Rosters go wild".
and then you MUST call Waste Management to handle the clean up, and then you must submit a 21E report when complete and pay all the fee's to file that report with all the above referenced agency's
and then if you have any money left after all that.... you can pay your MA state taxes just to make sure your truly broke so you can then apply for free food, free housing and unemployment for a few years
before you move to Florida

Welcome to Mass!

NoSmoke wrote:Foul animals are not allowed here (pun intended) whether it be a nasty ram,...

My brother had a goat for a while, it had two little ones. Damn thing kept going after the dogs, I'm sure the little ones were part of the reason. My dog was standing there minding her own business 20 or 30 feet away from the thing and it came running across the yard and T-boned her. The dog never even it saw it coming. Dog was fine, goat was sold a week a later.

Freddy wrote: I'm with you....animals on our property don't get a second chance. If one of our dogs ever bites a human, it's the last human they bite. There's no "Ohhh, the dog was protecting...."

Freddy my dog has managed to bite me twice, we have this trick where she sits in front of me and will jump for a treat that is clenched in my teeth on command. Her aim was off. I have that much trust in her, she usually gets hesitant with small pieces and the two times she got me she didn't draw blood. Definitely felt teeth on my lips though.

Of course you can't blame her for that.

The funniest over the top animal lover story I heard, was on a homesteading type forum where a woman was having problems with racoons getting her chickens. To combat this, she put up mice traps "to pinch the racoon's fingers so that it would learn to stay away from her chickens". I don't know what that chick was thinking, but I serious doubt you can "teach" a raccoon not to get your chickens by spanking its fingers. To even think so was kind of funny.

As for animal disposal; Smitty and friends, you are not far off the mark. Maine just passed new laws regarding animal disposal, and since I am a USDA farm, I must abide by those new laws. As we speak, I am waiting for a soil engineer to come to the farm to approve of a animal disposal location. A coyote bait pile is now quasi-legal. As long as the pile is in the right spot and not next to certain places like water bodies, property lines, etc, and all traces of the animal are disposed of within two weeks, it is legal, but where I put mine is close to a swamp so it must be moved. It is kind of tough because I want that pile WELL AWAY from the sheep pastures! Equally, when I lost a lot of sheep a year ago, I took mine up to the big dairy farm where their disposal site is, and that too is now against the law since they don't want you transporting them off your farm.

Being a sheep farm, we naturally have some nasty rams, and the problem with rams is, they are worth $150 bucks. When they get nasty, they take out your back or your knees, which with the hospital bill, loss of time from work, etc far exceeds their own value. It is just not worth it to have nasty animals, especially when you consider the liability of them!

As for animal lovers, oh my last year I had a dog get into our chickens and ducks, and after the third time we had enough and I just shot him. People thought that was just cruel, some even saying, "they were just ducks and chickens", well I make money off the ducks and chickens, so it was more like, "he was just a dog", and here we don't have problem animals. We don't pass them off to other people to compound the issue, we take care of it here. The same thing when they get old. The problem with pets is, we out live them, and I am not going to pass the responsibility of their end of life needs onto someone else. It is not something I want to do, but just a reality of of our 80 year life span, and their 15 year life span, and while I can understand people not having the heart to put down their own dogs, in the end whether it comes from a bullet or a needle, dead is dead.