Home to roost:
Bradley & Cooper
by the Byrne Family
We’ve kept ex-battery chickens for years;
delightful girls who relish new lives of
sunlight, trees and grass. But we’ve never
kept cockerels, having heard too many tales
of pillage and pandemonium.
Having contacted the RSPCA to see if any
hens needed homes, we unexpectedly
received a call a couple of months later
asking if we’d consider two cockerels. By now
we had more BHWT (British Hen Welfare
Trust) hens who were happy and well-
settled. Rocking the boat with one rooster
wasn’t part of the plan, let alone taking two.
But Bradley and Cooper had been
overlooked by adopters for months. We
felt sorry for them. We also didn’t want to
separate two friends by only taking one.
So the boys arrived. We installed them in an
isolation coop within the main run, so they
and the girls could eye one another up. The
girls eyed; the boys ate. The girls wandered
about and peered some more; the boys
attended to their food.
At dusk, with the girls a-bed, we introduced
the boys. Marion moved along a few nest
boxes as “I’m not sleeping next to a bloke,”
and Margaret woke up briefly to throw a few
handbags at Bradley. But then all went quiet.
At 5am we got up to check there had been
no bloodbath. We couldn’t believe our
eyes. Bradley and Cooper, with no hint of
aggression, were politely finding choice
morsels for their new wives with a bit of
‘sideways running’ being the only attempt at
showing off. The girls have now abandoned
their pecking order and Anning, previously
at the bottom, is now a confident part of a
harmonious whole.
All our preconceived notions about riotous
roosters have vanished. Bradley and
Cooper are beautiful, gentlemanly, polite
little people. We don’t know how we ever
managed without them. And neither do
the girls!