Losing Tarzan

We lost our young rooster Tarzan yesterday.

It was very strange. I tucked him into the coop as usual the night before, and he was just fine. I always keep roosters separated at night because Snap, our mature rooster, will beat the tar out of any young whippersnappers left in his clutches in the coop overnight. Tarzan is used to the routine and obediently goes into the inner cage (I usually leave him with a few hens).

But yesterday morning as I released the birds, I saw he was huddled on the floor, head on the ground.

He had no visible injuries, and he was lusty and strong the day before. What happened? Who knows. I can't imagine he was ganged up by the hens since hens aren't known for aggressive behavior toward roosters (though a few have chased him away when he got too persistent in his attentions).

After keeping a hopeful eye on him for a few hours, it was obvious something was terribly wrong and he was dying. I finally asked Don to put him out of his misery.

I find myself very upset at losing little Tarzan. From the crop of young roosters we hatched last summer, he had the nicest disposition and the handsomest appearance, and I was fond of him. Who knows what went wrong?

We're back down to just one male, faithful Snap, whom we hatched in 2010.

He's getting up there in rooster years, though still vigorous and fertile. We'll get another rooster this upcoming summer to share the load.

Sigh. Bye Tarzan, you were nice while you lasted.

Meet Tarzan

When we hatched out a batch of chicks last summer, one of our goals (besides replenishing our layers) was to obtain a second rooster.

This is Snap, our faithful male. We hatched him from an egg four years ago. He's been an excellent rooster -- virile but easy on the ladies, and never aggressive to us. Even after four years, he's still going strong.

But as much as we like good ol' Snap, he's getting up there in chicken years. Besides, with 18 hens, we need a second male to make sure the eggs are fertile (a good ratio of roosters to hens is about ten hens to every rooster).

Two years ago we hatched a beautiful white rooster whom we named King.

Sadly, King got carried off (presumably by a coyote) last summer, leaving Snap once more our solo male.

So as I said, one of our goals with hatching chicks this past summer was to get another male. As usual with straight-run hatches, about half our results were young roosters. After some observation, we culled all but one, a lovely young black male with cute little cheek patches (proving him to be part Americauna).

I named him Tarzan because his early crowing attempts -- no exaggeration -- sounded just like the old TV character. Frankly he sounded pretty pathetic. He's improving, but so far is nothing like Snap's virtuosity.

Right now he's about one-third the size of Snap, so he has a lot of growing to do. We also tuck him in the inner cage of the chicken coop at night lest he get the tar beat out of him (dominance issues, doncha know). But little Tarzan seems good-natured and (ahem) extremely virile.

We've noticed that while Snap dominates Tarzan in the coop, he pretty much leaves him alone while outside. This shows Snap is starting to slow down with age. He's still healthy and strong, but less threatened by another rooster's presence. Such is life.

Meanwhile, meet Tarzan.