Farina (after Richard Farina)

When Ducky was broody and depressed I found her three eggs to hatch. First came Twinkie then Farina and then Nacho. It was obvious really early on that Nacho was a roo and is now co-running one of my Grandfather's flocks in Del Rio. Farina had me guessing up until he crowed for the first time last week.

Farina is the first "problem" roo I have ever had. I have been complimented on the great demeanor of all my roos, including Nacho, by people who have raised chickens for quite sometime. No, not just my Grandfather either :>. My roos have all been docile and cuddly with humans while at the same time capable and strong enough to run a flock without hurting their ladies too much.

When Farina began to crow, last week, he also began a few odd rituals. First thing he does as soon as he's out of his little house is chase the girls, plucking a few tail feathers making them squeal. Then he'd run up to me, a gesture that melted my heart, and do this little dance. He hops around on one foot dragging a wing on the ground then stomp his little chicken feet and go around in a quick circle. I thought this was some cute nervous little habit he had and would pick him up as soon as he did it and tell him how cute he was. I'd put him down and he'd charge at my leg and try and nip my ankle. I thought he did this because he didn't realize my ankle was also me. But after the third time I realized there was a behavioural problem.

A few articles off the Internet and I discovered my sweet, neurotic roo is just trying to be the boss of me because he sees me as another rooster. I did do all that crowing to teach Nacho how to crow a few weeks back. Oops. That little dance is supposed to scare me into surrendering my power. However, I've been doing one thing right and that is picking him up to make over him like he were some defenseless little teddy bear. Hard not too,he's so darn cute and only six inches high.

At one point I had to separate him from the flock of girls because he seemed to be hurting them and annoying them too much. So Farina was placed in time out and I went inside to watch a movie. When I checked on the flock I found all the girls around Farina's lil house. I called William to come see. My thought was, why would they want to be around this little creep who has been rather vicious towards them. William's answer was, "Maybe he's like the Charles Manson of the roosters?". Twinkie, his ever loyal clutch mate, is definitely his Squeaky Fromm. But I read that despite how hard the roosters are on the flock, they appreciate a male around the place even if he's three to four inches shorter and meaner than hell.

The Dr Spock of the chicken world said more handling is required to turn this little roo into more of a gentleman. Now that I know I don't think there is too much work ahead of me. The next few days are going to play out like a Pygmalion scene, teehee.