Lessons Learned from a Dead Rooster

Well that's just crazy now, huh?  How can a rooster teach a lesson, let alone a dead one?  Well, that's a story that needs tellin', now doesn't it?  I can remember being a young boy watching cartoons and seeing Foghorn Leghorn teaching lessons to the old dog, Egghead Jr., and Henery Hawk.  "B-b-Boy, I say, Boy!"  Sure roosters can teach lessons and now that I'm older, I learned a lesson or two from a real rooster, not a cartoon one.

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We've got a number of roosters running around in the pasture.  They are needed in order to ensure that you have fertilized eggs in the event that you want to hatch out any eggs.  The correct ratio of roosters for hens is 1:10.  You need roughly one rooster for every 10 hens in the flock.  We have that ratio and the roosters run around and do their thing.

Roosters can be very aggressive creatures and, as we've learned, there is indeed a pecking order. Roosters will communicate their dominance.  They each have their own 'harem' and the roosters do an effective job of policing one another and generally try to stay out of each others' way.  Every once in a while, though, a rooster will lose his spot in the pecking order.  He will get into an altercation with another rooster after the other rooster, usually a younger one, challenges him for the top spot. They'll fight and the loser, defeated and scared, will retreat.  It is sad what happens next.

The losing rooster will be picked on and intimidated by all the others and will hide from the others and will shortly die.  The other day this very event played out on our farm.  When we went out to milk, we saw one of our Aracauna roosters cowering in fear under the table near Rosie's milking stall in the barn.  He wasn't bleeding.  He didn't have broken bones,  He didn't appear to be injured.  But he was frightened and traumatized.  We've seen this play out several times.  When I fed the chickens, he never came out from under the table.  A broken dude, to be sure.

The Aracauna's hiding spot

I threw him some feed, hoping he'd come out, thinking that maybe, just maybe he'd get his "second wind" and fight back and live, but it was not to be.  A couple days later Russ found the rooster dead in his hiding spot in the barn under the table. What was the cause of death?  I don't know.  We didn't perform an autopsy on the old boy, but I think he died because he just gave up.

After getting beat up and knocked down, he just gave up and didn't have a will to live.  He cowered in fear in the corner of a dark barn and just quit.  Quit on his ladies.  Quit on life.  We buried the rooster in the garden, between the row of kale and carrots and even though he no longer lives, he'll provide fertilizer for our vegetables. So his dying wasn't a total waste, he has offspring running around the pasture and with the nutrients from his decomposing body, he'll provide for our garden, but his death was tragic and needless.

The rooster's final resting place

So what lesson did I learn from the rooster?  Well for one, we, just like roosters, will always have times in our lives when we'll get beat up.  Sometimes we will get beat up by literal bullies.  There is a pecking order.  Everyone can't be the "head rooster," but we all have an important role to play.  Just because we aren't the leader, doesn't mean that we can't contribute.  Excel in whatever role you have. Bloom where you are planted.

Sometimes we will just get beat up by events in life, disappointments, and dreams not realized.  I've been there.  So have you. In those times there will be a strong temptation to just hide in a corner, curling up in a fetal position and you'll just want to give up, quit, throw in the towel.  Take heart, old rooster!  Don't cower in the corner.  Come out fighting.  You have much to live for.  Don't give up. Never, ever give up.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."  Joshua 1:9