Some years ago, my husband and I finally fulfilled our dream of living on a farm. We were city people completely intimidated by the thought of raising livestock. So, we decided to start small with some hens and the requisite rooster. After all, we thought, how hard could it be to raise a few birds?
We were dreaming about brown, organic eggs the day we picked up our four-week-old chicks at the local co-op. They came in a cardboard box. It was obvious right from the start which one was the rooster. On the way home we were alarmed at the shrieks emanating from within.
We were relieved to find only minor injuries when we got home, but we were left with the unsettling feeling that we might be unleashing a poultry monster into our lives.
The henhouse my husband was building wasn’t ready, so we put the chicks in a small pen in the basement, where they flourished. One day I went downstairs to find the little rooster running around the pen holding a dead mouse by the tail. It was almost the same size as he was.
We named our rooster Charlemagne. After a time he became Charlie.
When the henhouse was complete, the chickens moved in. As he matured, Charlie became very possessive of his girls. By the time the hens started laying those coveted eggs, we were terrified of him. To collect the eggs, I had to wait until the hens were out free-ranging and then take the back way out to the henhouse, sneaking from tree to tree. If Charlie spied me I’d have to make a run for it. He was ferocious. He was unrelenting. He would race to get in front of me, spread his wings, and then jump at me repeatedly, landing his spurs, more often than not, on my tender shins. Sometimes he would pretend he didn’t notice me. He’d peck busily at the ground until I let my guard down and then he’d launch a rear attack. Eventually I armed myself with a water gun. A well-placed squirt in that beady eye would buy me some time.
Charlie and I carried on this relationship for some time, each winning and losing some, until the day he came down sick. I separated Charlie from his flock. He was too ill to protest. It saddened me to see my tormentor defeated. Over the next while I kept him under a heat lamp and put electrolytes in water, which I dribbled down his throat. He had no desire to eat, but I was able to tempt him with rice and peas that I cooked especially for him. Amazingly, Charlie recovered and was soon as mean as ever—although I think he softened a little toward me.
Charlie was eventually killed by a raccoon while defending his flock. He fought bravely. We didn’t lose a single hen that night. We still live on the farm and we know a little more about raising chickens these days. There have been many other roosters and hens over the years, but there has never been another Charlie.
Orillia, Ontario