The Rooster - December 10, 2019 @goldenoakfarm

My husband swears we have a rooster up at the barn. He’s half again as big as the hens, and those Australorp hens are no slouches this year, in size. But there’s been no crowing, just an odd croaking noise coming from the flock. When his tail is up, you can see his feathers are a bit longer than the hens, and just starting to droop at the ends.

Also the most eggs we’ve gotten are 17 for 18 birds. Telling, that…..

I took this photo the end of September. I suspect the bottom bird is the rooster, due to comb and wattles. But you can see he’s no bigger than they are.

I think this is the same bird, taken the end of September. You can see he doesn’t have rooster tail feathers, even at this age. But he’s the only one with that big spiked comb.

While it was so warm on Tuesday I went up to the barn to wire the hose from the water reservoir to the heat lamps, so it won’t freeze. This also centers the lamps over the waterer and keeps it from freezing. There’s a stock tank heater in the reservoir.

While I was doing that, the rooster was outside mostly. My helper friend calls him a sissy rooster, as he disappears inside or outside depending on where we are at the barn. While the rooster was outside when I was working on the lamps, I heard the odd croaking call behind me. Wasn’t the rooster, for sure. I think it might be another Australorp, a hen, but I couldn’t pin point it.

So outside of his appearance, he sure has not acted like a rooster, at 7½ months. The 2 Barred Rock roosters we had during the summer started acting like roosters at about 3 months. They tormented the hens at night when they were locked in. This rooster hasn’t bothered any hens we know of.

So as long as he doesn’t start crowing, bother us or the hens unduly, he might live as long as they do, until October next year