Well, here he is — the rooster we purchased from the 4H tent at the Genessee County Fair. He is a Brahma cockerel, and we’ve decided to name him Sam, due to his resemblance to a certain Muppet — in his facial expression, if not his color.
I cannot express strongly enough how glad we are that we decided to add Sam to our flock. He is just a delightful bird — a gentle disposition, yet strong when he needs to be, too. When George and I squat down low to the ground, he will come running over, happy to see us. Besides Buddy Hen, he’s the only one of our birds who does that. (Coincidentally, he is also a fan of potato chips.)
When we brought him home yesterday, we had several hours until it would be dark, and we couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him in the cage that long, so our original plan of an ill-lit introduction to the flock was tossed aside. Besides, we wanted to know if there were going to be any real issues. And all things considered, there haven’t been. Sure, as we expected, Billy Badass, our little Bantam Mille Fleur rooster challenged Sam almost immediately — but that came to a quick end, because Sam need only give the slightest effort into a chest bump, and it sends Billy flying three feet backwards! It only took about four or five rounds of that before Billy decided that it was probably not a good idea. And our Roo (Welsummer) definitely took issue with Sam — even at half of the Brahma’s size. They’ve had a couple of adversarial encounters outside of the coop, but Sam is not trying to be dominant — he just wants to be. He’ll defend himself as needed, but he’s not antagonizing the other birds. In fact, he’s doing a great job with the hens — leading them to forage in different places on the property, and carefully watching over them. I initially found him this morning out in the field where we dump the old chicken bedding. He and a small harem of hens were all happily pecking away at bugs that have come to feed on the old chicken poo.
I just went out about a half an hour ago, looking for him, and he was nowhere to be found. I had to squelch the urge to panic — had Welly Roo run him off? Did he go in search of a better home? Did a predator get him? I kept looking, and remembered that several of our pullets and hens have taken a liking to the front woodline as a foraging spot. I walked along the edge of the woods, calling “Sam?” and it only took a moment to hear him cluckering back at me. He was busy guarding about ten ladies who were intently looking for chow. He came out and circled around me, making happy chicken noises, as if to let me know everything was copacetic.
He’s just a really nice bird.
Oh, and I can’t neglect to mention his awesome crow. It sounds like the starting notes of the Dragnet theme.
He’s just a handsome fella — his darker feathers have a green iridescence to them that just shimmers in the sunlight and is gorgeous. I’ll have to try and capture that in a photo, but it may not be the easiest task.
We couldn’t be happier with our first purchase from a fair. It was a bit of a hassle, as we couldn’t pick him up until 5:00 p.m. yesterday, and even though we were only on the fairgrounds for maybe 20 minutes, we were still made to pay the $5 parking fee again, which we had already paid when we were there for the afternoon on Friday. I’ll be writing a letter to the fair headquarters suggesting that they make a provision which allows for either a discounted or waived parking fee if you are picking up livestock you’ve purchased.
But Sam was well worth that small bit of inconvenience — we are really happy to have him here on the farm!
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