Meet Randy!

We have a new addition to the menagerie - a cockerel! It's been a bit quiet since Freddy died and I always said I'd be happy to take on another cockerel, especially if I was saving it from the pot. Well guess what, last week I luckily noticed a plea on facebook from a friend of a friend who I'd met once at a party. She has lots of chooks and breeds Buff Orpingtons and had a six month old cockerel who needed a new home, or else her husband was going to turn him into pie, and they only live about 20 minutes away. How could I resist?

As soon as we let him out at home, he jumped straight on top of one of my little red hens so it was hardly difficult to find a name for him! He dwarfs my bog standard 'red hens' and is a good size match for my enormous North Holland Blue. I hadn't noticed how big he is at Sue's house, because all the Buff Orpingtons were large including the females, so neither he nor his father seemed particularly big. 

Randy's father is the one in the foreground on the left. His name is Coq au Vin!

Glad I wore my old gardening jacket as I didn't know
I was going to be holding him for a photo shoot!

Back home and all is going very well. He's settled in fine and the girls seem perfectly happy and going about their henny business as usual. Randy is a little timid with us at the moment and is a bit wary when he sees one of the cats, as he's used to dogs, not cats. But this is so much easier than introducing new females and none of that pecking and being mean, as I think given his size the pecking order was established straight away! Randy is not 100% Buff Orpington as they don't have white feathers in their tails, but I think he's more interesting looking because of it.

With the girls - Marleen the North Holland Blue is the large grey speckeldy one.

Blurred action as Andrea gets a seeing to! ;-)

Where am I?

Only decent picture I could get of one of the hens - not sure if this is Gaby or Carly as they are
very similar and I can't tell them apart! She's been stuck in a half moult for a while but
at least she is still laying.

I've taken a few more photos of Randy since but it was on one of the days when the icy NE wind was blowing so he looks amusing with his feathers all ruffled.

Windswept wattles!

Oooh that wind's a bit chilly up me bum!

Ahh I thought that was water for the dogs!

Tastes good enough to me!

When he's a bit more settled I'll let him out into the garden with the others so he can have a good roam around and eat grass, and it'll be interesting when he gets to meet the cats properly...... it might actually teach the cats - particularly Bertie the hunter - a lesson if Randy gets aggressive, and hopefully they'll leave the chooks alone in future.