Egglebert was a Good Rooster

Egglebert was killed last night.  In all fairness, I can't say for certain whether it was the predator that got him, then couldn't remove him from the pen, or if he and the white rooster had it out and Eggy lost.

Eggy was part of my first season of chickens here in 2006.  I ordered four Cuckoo Marans hens.  One of them turned out to be a rooster.  Thus began one of the big story lines at Busy Solitude Farm.

At first he was a big mush.  Kind of girly.  He hung around with the hens as a pal.  Early on we had a season of challenge, me and the Eggster.  It was a summer where I stopped showing my legs because the bruises from spurring were too gruesome.  He was defending his girls. 

I stood by him (broom in hand). 

We went through my misled attempt to add testosterone to the barn with Tweedledum and Eggy survived that.  Then he seemed to be more active with the hens, because we had a number of broodies who hatched an egg or two.  Which led us to the "too many roosters" problem this summer.

I knew that the white rooster had gone after Egglebert.  That was one of the reasons that Eggy started living outside the hen pen in the greater barn. 

I indulged him, and let him have the run of the place.

But when the predator issue rose up, I had no choice but to put them together in the same space and hope for the best.

Last night when it was time to close up I discovered the power to the barn is out.  My vast electrical knowledge extends to check to see if anything can turn on, and check the circuit breakers.  Now I need someone to test and figure out where the problem is.  The barn camera took one photo at 22:39.  Without any additional light, the camera's flash didn't hit anything and the picture is black.

So I can't know if the white rooster won the fight last night, or if the predator killed him and couldn't get him out of the pen.  His body was not near any exit point I can understand.  That points towards the white rooster.  But I can't know for sure.

Egglebert was a good rooster.

Now he's roaming the fields of chicken heaven.