Staying in Your Lane

Last year an acquaintance of ours offered to give us a rooster.  The rooster was purchased from a feed store as a baby chick and was supposed to be a laying hen.  However, as the chick grew and matured, it was discovered that the hen was not a hen - it was a rooster!  Roosters don't lay eggs and this person lived in town and didn't want a crowing rooster to wake up the neighborhood.  We gladly accepted the rescue rooster onto our homestead. 

He has grown into a regal-looking gentleman.  Most times that a new bird is introduced into a flock and its already established pecking order, they are ostracized, picked on, and bullied.  Sometimes this mistreatment ends in death.  Not in this case.  The old boy had lots of confidence from day 1, proudly patrolling the barnyard, putting the other roosters on notice and catching the eye of his new harem of hens.

Right before the sun rises, the rooster's crows reverberate around the country-side, alerting slumbering neighbors of the dawn of a new day.  The rooster struts around, keeping his hens in line.  He is the cock of the walk.  One afternoon last week I saw him standing on top of the garden fence and felt trouble was brewing.  I don't want the old boy in the garden, scratching in the mulch and eating our produce.  We once had a chicken that would sneak into the garden and eat the bottoms out of our homegrown tomatoes.  We put a fast end to that.

Saturday afternoon, the fence-sitting progressed to trespassing.  I cornered the curious cock and took swift action.  The bird is big and put up a fight.  His wingspan was quite impressive.

'Twas that impressive wingspan that enabled the old fellow to fly up to the top of the garden gate and then hop down into the garden.  This rooster needs to learn to stay in his lane.  We drew a 'red line in the sand.'

Before

You may be thinking that we killed the rooster, but that's not at all what we did.  I got some scissors to clip his wings.  By clipping his wings, he would no longer be able to fly to the top of the garden gate.  Snip-Snip, here.  Snip-Snip, there, and the job was quickly done!

After

Without those feathers, he would not be able to get in trouble by trespassing into the garden.  His wings were literally clipped.

Like the rooster, we can all step out of our boundaries from time to time.  A little encouragement to help us stay in our lane is much appreciated.  The old fellow's wings will eventually grow back and we will have to clip wings again, but for now, he is grounded, and he is in a "fowl" mood because of it.