Bully rooster is getting meaner and noisier. The first of the suburban neigbors has petitioned for quiet. My biggest surprise is that it took her so long to complain. She is Bully's favorite neighbor. I think he is actually seranading her when he hops the fence to crow on her patio table. I am complaining with her. So far I have only succeeded in getting him and his 5 female brood-mates roosting higher in the hackberry tree. Better broadcasting up there?

Bully rooster has me obsessing over the 2nd rooster from the same brood. He is a Japanese Silkie. Silkies are a flightless breed and often called the gentlest and most nurturing of the chicken breeds. He still roosts in the rabbit hutch where the entire brood spent their chickhood. I have brought him into my morning meditations. Literally. I comb his downy feathers while bully rooster is creating his first disturbances of the day. Silkie is crowing often enough to be certain he really is a rooster, but the two birds are as opposite as can be in my vast 2 years of chicken keeping.

The tales of my first rooster are why I put "TW" on the header. I still hurt when I remember all the forum members I triggered with those tales. Amends in progress. . . My first rooster, too, was very, very different from either of these two roosters. He was delicious. But. . . All three of them violate City Noise Ordinances. Sigh. What's a hobbyist to do?