I think it is high time that you meet Dan. He is the best rooster I have ever had. Even though I only started raising and tending chickens less than 10 years ago, I have had a lot of roosters during that time.
Mind you, I am not in the business of raising roosters - the main goal of my chicken husbandry is eggs and soil building. I started out, like most, picking up a couple of little chicks from a breeder. She was recommended to me by my Permaculture teacher and had chickens of any size available for sale.
I picked out a few little chicks. They were so cute. How could I not want to bring them home with me.
That was the beginning of many chicken adventures.
Dan was part of the great incubation experiment.
I had borrowed an incubator, bought 40 fertile eggs, and watched the eggs doing their thing. I will write about this experience later.
But what I will tell you now is that when you breed out 40 eggs and they all hatch, you end up with 20 little roosters.
They are very cute until they get to be about 2 months old. By the time they are 4 months, you have a lot of rooster stories to tell!!
And those 20 were just the beginning!
Back to Dan.
Here he is watching me from a perch while I am opening everything up for them and spreading around some greens.
He is watching me and he is watching some of his girls. Making sure that all is just as it is supposed to be.
Dan is doing his duty and has fathered oodles of babies. After my incubation adventure, I decided that it is much easier to let the girls do the work of sitting on the eggs and raising the chicks.
The best part about Dan is that he has never attacked me or any of the kids. Roosters can do a lot of damage. I will never harvest Dan and will be very sad when he gets to the end of his rooster life.
Here he is, looking at you. Don't think that you can sneak anything by him.
