So, you might be familiar with our beautiful rooster, Merlin. I have written a book about him (available here: https://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Merlin-Good-Life/dp/195045472X/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=my+name+is+merlin&qid=1564484646&s=gateway&sr=8-3). He has a beautiful, strong crow that is often the first wonderful thing I hear in the morning. With all of the important benefits he provides to the farm, waking to his beautiful crow is probably my favorite.
Some of you may not realize that in 2017, we lost our entire flock of chickens and “Griffin”, the sweet, beautiful rooster we had then, to a predator or predators (likely weasel or mink). We went all of 2018 without any chickens because we were concerned how we could protect them, if the electric poultry fence hadn’t done the job of protecting our flock.
Then, in July of 2018, we brought home Odin, a Great Pyrenees, who trained for the first twelve weeks of his life with his parents to be a livestock guardian dog. He is now fifteen months old and still has much training to be accomplished, but we are hopeful that his presence on the farm and in the pasture has lessened the presence of predators looking for a free chicken breakfast/lunch/dinner.
Last summer, we brought Merlin, then just sixteen weeks old, home to our farm. We gave him the coop to make his own and then we brought several hens we purchased from a neighboring farm to keep him company and to be his “girls”. Well, they ended up picking on him, as chickens are known to do. He was afraid of them, and rightly so! They wouldn’t let him eat or drink. When we realized this, we went out several times a day and stood over him and protected him while he ate and drank. He seemed so appreciative of that.
Eventually, last fall, we butchered those hens because they just weren’t nice hens and had taken to breaking and eating their eggs. We then purchased four ten-month-old hens from another farm just to keep him company for the winter. These hens had never been out of their pens, so we watched him teach them all kinds of things (further explained in Merlin’s book).
In May of this year, we bought 16 female just-hatched chicks. They were a nice variety of Golden Comet (great brown egg layers which now are the majority of our flock), Easter Eggers (for their beautiful eggs in varied shades of blue/green, Wellsummer and Cuckoo Maran (both of whose eggs are a dark, chocolate brown). Sixteen chicks added to our flock of four hens would make a nice round twenty hens for Merlin. Well, so much for my love of things being all neat and tidy and in round numbers!
Well, a couple of weeks ago, my son, who to date, has a 100% accuracy rate, predicted that one of the “pullets” was in fact a young rooster. I rushed out to see what made him think that, and after looking at them and comparing them all, agreed that he was probably right. Then, just a few days later, I heard a squeaky, weak crow. I smiled! Micah was correct…again! We had a cockerel among the pullets!
Now, each morning, Merlin wakes up the farm and I love the sound of his crow. But, shortly after he crows, I hear this little guy crow…still weak-sounding, but definitely growing in strength and volume! It’s beautiful! They crow back and forth. I wonder what they are saying! Maybe Merlin is just doing his thing and then “Kellogg” (as he has been named by his new family) tries to emulate him. But, regardless, it makes me smile every day, every crow.
Tomorrow Kellogg will go to his new home where I hope he will grow to be as good a rooster as Merlin is for us. I will miss his squeaky little crow! But, I will still smile because when I hear Merlin crow, I will think of him and know his crow will be making a new family smile!
