Roosters: Sex in the City

Fall 2007

Dear Friends,

During the industrial revolution, many people moved to cities and, as a result, gave up their connection to the land. As our population increased, we began producing huge quantities of food to supply additional needs. To meet this demand, we stuffed animals into small crates, injected them with hormones to speed up growth, gave them large amounts of antibiotics to help protect them from the illnesses associated with overcrowding, fed them unnatural food, and practiced out-of-control genetic selection. We fed the world, but at what cost?

The latest trend in our cities is the reintroduction of chickens... and a new controversy begins.

Many regulations state you can only have three hens and no roosters within the city limits. At one time when you wanted a hen, you might have gotten one from your neighbor who just had a hen hatch a clutch of eggs. This is the natural way of getting chickens and you stood a 50-50 chance of getting young hens (pullets) or getting young roosters (cockerels). The sex of the chick was discovered as they matured.

Today, hatcheries artificially incubate the fertile eggs for 21 days in large automated incubators that rotate the eggs, regulate humidity and keep the temperature constant. The sex of the chick is determined shortly after hatching with fairly high accuracy.

Although the hatcheries have a very good success rate of determining the sex of a chick, it is not considered 100% accurate. If you are living in the city and you want the three hens allowed by city ordinances, you may find that as your chicks mature, one day you and your neighbors will wake up to the prepubescent rooster, with its cracking crow, trying its best to announce the dawn. Initially, you may laugh at the silly sounds that come screeching from that little feathered boy you raised from a day-old chick. Eventually, however, it is no longer cute or funny.

At first, if you are lucky, the neighbors will complain to you. But, you don’t know what to do. You make a few inquiries looking for a new home for your beloved friend with no luck. You are afraid to place an advertisement in the papers fearing he will end up in someone’s belly. You can’t seem to find any takers so... you wait and hope for the best. Then one day, the code enforcement officer knocks on your door and gives you that stern and feared warning--find a new home for your rooster or face fines. Now, the very same rooster you are wanting to save from an untimely death risks being confiscated and “disposed of”.

What are you to do? Believe it or not, many roosters find themselves being turned loose and abandoned. Some rooster owners call the Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary and plead for us to find one more place among our other hens and roosters.

“He is just a youngster and very pretty with all of his fancy plumage.”

“Can’t you take just one more?”

“Our neighbors are very mad at us and are tired of being awakened at 5 a.m.”

We certainly wish it was that simple. The male sex of most species have strong urges to procreate. When there are too many males and too few females, the females frequently suffer cruel, bloody attacks. Sometimes this leads to permanent disfigurement and even death, and if we took in every rooster from these types of calls, this is what would happen to our hens.

Unfortunately, many well-meaning people do not think of the long term implications. Being reconnected with nature, purity and wholesomeness is a wonderful goal to work toward, but consider the innocent in this example. Is it really natural to get chickens out of an incubator? Is it really pure to be able to select hens and then expect the roosters to be disposed of like unwanted fodder? Is it really wholesome to only know part of the story?

We all want to be part of the solution. but to do that, we need to research our options in order to make informed decisions.

With much gratitude,

Wayne S. Geiger, President