Uncharted Heritage

Adding fruit to our little homestead.

What is a "fruit cocktail tree"?

Why did we choose a "fruit cocktail tree" to begin our orchard?

For more information on planting and pruning fruit trees, we referred to: Storey's Basic Country Skills: A Practical Guide to Self-Reliance and Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills

Recently we made the decision to eliminate the rooster from our flock. This was a good decision for our family. I realize that everyone's experiences with having roosters varies. This simply has been our experience so far.

Firstly, the pros of having a rooster:

*The biggest reason we liked having our rooster was the fact that he was protective of the hens so we worried a little less about attacks from predators. (However, the extreme protective behavior was also a downside to us actually enjoying our chickens, as our roo was also eager to attack us.)

*Our second reason we liked having the rooster was that he consistently alerted us to their location when they were free-ranging. If we were unable to see them, if we waited a moment and listened we could hear a crow from him and could tell their whereabouts.

*Lastly, we liked that we had the possibility to have chicks.


Now the pros of NOT having a rooster:

*Our hens are so much friendlier. All of them. We had one that was always friendly, but the others were skittish and tended to keep their distance mostly. It was hard to convince them to let us pet them, and extremely difficult to catch them and hold. Since the rooster is gone, all of our hens come to us freely, willingly and eagerly. In fact, they will line up at our door sometimes and wait on us. :)


*Since the chickens are friendlier, this leads to the next benefit. Since there is no aggressive [rooster] we can allow our children to play outside without fear. Our oldest daughter began to not like playing outside, come to find out, she was always worried the rooster would escape the coop/run. Since he is gone, she is excited to play outside again.


*The hens typically stay closer to home. It seemed with the rooster they roamed a bit further when free-ranging. Sometimes the hens still wander off, but usually not as far and/or for not as long.

*Lastly, our hens' eggs are not fertilized. This makes it easier to give them away or sell them. We have found that some people will not eat eggs that they believe may be fertilized.

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What has your experience been?
Do you prefer having a rooster in your flock?
What have been your PROs and CONs?

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