Rojo

Remember all those baby chicks we got back in May? All 11 of them? Well, I think I may have mentioned before that they are no longer chicks...and of the 11, only 2 of them are hens. This is what we refer to as major suckage. Because we already had 2 roosters, we now have a total of 11 roosters and only 4 hens. Can you see the problem here?

Most people who have chickens will tell you that two roosters is one too many. And that's 2 roosters in a whole darn FLOCK of hens. We had 11 roosters fighting amongst themselves over 4 hens. Oh yeah, I mean serious FIGHTING. We had blood in the coop! So something had to be done. We decided to try to get some more hens, and I found 5 Barred Rock hens on Craig's List for $5 each. Barry went and picked them up last weekend and we were very excited, to say the least. Maybe some of the fighting would stop until we could get rid of the majority of them.

Well, you know what they say about best laid plans, right? The next morning, Kendall went out to check on her new hens, and came back in the house screaming for me. The roosters were ganging up on the new hens and she felt like they were trying to kill them. I went out to see if it was as bad as my little drama queen was making it out to be...and it was. These poor little hens were pushed up against the fence with their heads poking through so the roosters couldn't get at their eyes. One was even hiding under a piece of plastic. They were terrified. So Kendall and I rescued each and every one and put them in a different pen until we could figure out what to do. Our friends Paul and Kirsten wanted two...and our neighbor wanted one. Shoot, that still left 6 to get rid of! So Barry decided we needed some chicken to put in the freezer (if you're smellin' what I'm steppin' in here). Animal lovers, stop reading now. This is your one and only warning!

Paul told us not to pay someone to do it, he and Barry could do it in 3o minutes, he was sure of it! No big deal, he'd done it all his life. Well, that's all fine and good, but I was having no part of it. I will cook it and eat it, but I just can't bring myself to kill it. Barry talked to Kendall about it, and she had a lot of questions, but was actually ok with it. She could see that the situation called for action. She even helped us catch the chickens and get them crated up to head over to Paul's. Of course, she picked which chickens went to our friends and which ones stayed and which ones ended up in the freezer...that was the least we could do! The first chicken to receive his place in the crate was Rojo (she named him while on a Spanish kick), because according to her, he had the hardest bite and was definitely the "mean one". (***Note: Barry confirmed this fact later, by saying that "Rojo was definitely a mean little bastard. He didn't go down without a fight, let me tell you! But he was also the meatiest...")

ANYWAY, to make a long story short, we now have chicken in the freezer and no more rooster problems. All is well. But on Thursday night while I was working, Barry made dinner for the kids and Noah asked him where Rojo was. Barry wasn't sure he had head him correctly, so he asked him to repeat the question.
"Where's Rojo, Dad?"
"Rojo the rooster, Buddy?"
"Yes! Where's Rojo?"
"Ummm, well, Rojo's in the freezer..."
"The fweezer? Oh! Rojo's wiving in our fweezer?"
"Well, no...not exactly. You know how you like steak?"
"Yeah, I WUV steak!"
"And you know how we get steak from cows, right?"
"Yeah! I WUV steak, Dad!"
" I know, Buddy. Well, we get chicken from CHICKENS, like Rojo. Understand?"
"You mean Rojo's wiving in our fweezer?"
"You know what, let me show you."

So Barry takes Noah to the basement and pulls out a freezer bag of chicken pieces. Noah does not look surprised.

"Here's Rojo, buddy. Understand now?"
"Oh! Rojo is FOOD!!!!"
"Yep, that's right. You're exactly right. Rojo is food." (Barry is shocked that Noah "got it" that easily, of course.)
"I wike chicken, Dad. But I WUV steak!"

That kid has a one-track mind. And that was the end of it. He was absolutely fine. In fact, I think he was more disturbed by the thought of Rojo LIVING in our freezer!

R.I.P., Rojo!