Yesterday was a big day for our chicken flock. We got a new rooster. We didn’t want to just keep breeding within our current flock of Dorkings. Dorking are hard to find around here so we opted to get a rooster from a different breed. He’s a Dominique/Barnevelder cross. I was looking for heritage breeds – dual purpose and good foragers. I made a contact in Stafford through Craigslist. A ways to go for us – over 2 hours – but I wanted to get this done. It also worked out that Samantha and her friend Luca were able to come over and help process our current rooster and our lone drake. Our last female duck was killed last week. Our drake spent the week in the backyard. He didn’t seem too distressed, but they really don’t do well as a single and there was no need to keep him. So in the morning we processed and later in the day Damian and I went to Stafford to get the new rooster.

He spent most of today in the barn. This hen stayed with him. I wonder if she was the same hen that was sitting with the duck under the patio table 2 days ago. In the above photo the rooster and hen are trying to get back together. She finally figured it out.

You can just barely see his tail feathers to the right of the hen. He was pended up previously so we hope he soon gets used to open forage. I looked in on him again this afternoon and he was in the compost with the hens so that is a good sign.

Early Lenten Rose