Chicken relocation program, let’s get this done

So getting the two roosters, Curly and Kathy (yes I still call him Kathy) re-homed has been something I have been working on this week.  The longer we have the roosters the more difficult it is going to be when we have to give them away.

In addition to leaving a message for the chicken lady I also was in contact with a big chicken farm in North Fort Myers, asking them if they would want a couple roosters to just live instead of becoming a meal.  They said they can’t guarantee anything as it depends on how the roosters act.  If they become overly aggressive they are a problem, and problems need to be “corrected”.

I even called Jack and Ann’s feed store in Immokalee, asking if they knew of anyone that would adopt roosters without the intention of eating them.  The guy on the phone chuckled a little bit.  He said he can pretty much guarantee me that if we would give the roosters to anyone that lives in Immokalee the roosters would either be involved in chicken fighting or chicken stew, neither of which were viable options.

I was getting depressed about our options and was thinking our best choice was to take them to the chicken farm, letting the chickens roll the dice that they integrate well into the flock.  Well late yesterday afternoon the chicken lady finally called me back.  She said somehow she missed the message I left earlier in the week.  I talked to her about the birds.  She said she definitely could use one more buff orpington rooster to help service her 30 hens.  The other one she doesn’t necessarily need but she could take it as well to hang in the flock with the possibility of adopting it back out to someone else since she does a lot of chicken transactions.  Obviously she has a lot more opportunity to re-home a chicken than we do.

So the new plan is to try to meet up with Anna after work tonight so we can give her the two roosters and she was going to give us one more hen.  Curly and Kathy are quite content with their current living conditions and both Cindy and I are fond of them as well. Both birds are the first two to come charging across the yard to see if Cindy or I have a treat for them.  Trying to catch both roosters to get them in the cat carriers is going to be quite the chore as well.  I just want it to be behind us so we can have a total female chicken population from here on out.

This weekend there is going to be a lot of work on phase 2 of the the chicken coop project.  I am hoping to get the automatic chicken door installed as well as a good portion of the attached chicken run finished up as well.  It shouldn’t be quite as grueling as the original platform/shed build but I am sure it will offer up it’s own set of hurdles to overcome.

We need to try to get as much done coop-wise as possible this weekend since starting next weekend we will have almost two weeks of flooring project to fill our days.