Chicken Mystery

One of Maggie's last tasks each night is to make sure all of the chickens are in the coop, and to lock the door until morning. We have one small chicken, which she calls Chicklet, that seems to always be the last one to go to bed. I was wrapping up a project in the garden on Sunday and noticed that all the chickens, including Chicklet, seemed to be in the coop. I walked over, closed the door, and went to the house to tell Maggie the chickens were all away for the night.

Later that evening we were reading in the living room and heard a rooster crow outside the window. We went outside and found a rooster perched on the railing of the back porch. This seemed odd as the three roosters we have are usually the first chickens to go into the coop for the night, as they gather the hens up at the end of each day. We assumed I had missed a chicken, so I picked it up and we carried it to the coop.

The next night, Maggie put the chickens away, and it seemed like she had them all. We decided to sit on the front porch for a while to watch the sunset, but as we climbed the stairs, we found a rooster perched on the railing of the front porch. A little mystified, we picked the rooster up and carried it to the coop.

On day three, we realized what the problem was. Somehow, we now had four roosters hanging around the flock. We later heard a rooster crowing across the road in the cornfield, as if to lure some hens. After putting the chickens in the coop at the end of the day, we sat outside and sure enough, a rooster appeared at the end of the driveway. It slowly walked up the drive, to the front porch, up the stairs, and perched on the railing. We picked the rooster up and put it in the coop.

We have a couple of theories as to the origin of the mystery rooster. Our neighboring farmer recently moved, and we are wondering if he left a rooster behind. It also is possible that a flock scattered from a nearby farm, perhaps by a dog, and the rooster lost his way. Lastly, even though our road gets few travelers, most people in the area know we let our chickens free-range, so it is possible someone dropped a rooster off. Since roosters do not lay eggs, most people do not keep any with their flock to reduce the feed bill. We are not sure if this new rooster will eventually get used to our flock and coop, and we really do not need another rooster, but it seems to like our farm enough to at least roost here for the night.