Welcome Mr. Roo

Last week we had an unfortunate hawk incident. While this type of deadly encounter is inevitable when you live on a homestead, it is still saddening. We only lost one, our Easter Egger. You can see her silly antics in Chicken Jump Jump. She was by far one of our friendliest and one of my favorites.

After a little research, I decided we needed a rooster, not only for protection for the girls but also so that should we have a few losses a year, we would have the ability to replace them through hatchlings. (New chicks that wouldn't have to live in our back room for the first few months until they were big enough to get sent to the coop.) While we will most likely end up with mixed breeds, hopefully they will still give us yummy eggs.

I scoured Craigslist and fell in love the a Black Cooper Maran that was available in our home town. Alas, the post's owner never returned my emails so I had to continue my search. I found a couple but they were awfully far away, free or otherwise. I finally can across a post that wasn't too far and although the picture was grainy, the owner was nice and responded quickly. After a few emails back and forth we arranged for a drop off. I spent the following week conversing with other homesteaders and chickens peeps on BackYardChickens.com. (If you have never visited it and own chickens, you are missing out, the knowledge to be found there is better than my local library.) The consensus seemed to be that unless I was planning on quarantining our new rooster for 21 days to a month, properly (i.e. no shared soil, air, water, etc.) then don't bother. With my small flock it was recommended to just turn them loose together and hope for the best.

Saturday arrived and so did our new rooster. The kids and in-laws immediately fell in love and Mr. Roo joined our flock. We held him in our raising bin outside in the coop so the girls could eye him up. And they did. As soon as he got a glimpse of them, he started crowing and the rest of flock came running over. At nightfall, we put him into the coop. Mr Roo jumped into the roosts and began posturing and crowing. It was a sight.

Days later, they seem to have settled in. Welcome Mr. Roo!

The woman who gave him to us didn't know what kind he was. I have seen many different types that look like him. If anyone knows how to tell or which kind he is, please let us know in the comment section.

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