Chickens are great, but that rooster is on a whole different level!

At our house we love chickens! They’re easy to care for, are pleasant animals, and provide valuable food for our family. Over the years the boys have learned to love our chickens. They feed and water them and love on them like they are babies.

Rich, our oldest son, loves all chickens and we call him the ‘chicken whisperer.’ They always seem to gravitate toward his kind demeanor. He can walk in the pen and they will follow him step for step every time.

Maddox on the other hand has a love/hate relationship with chickens. He loves the hens and hates the roosters!

When Maddox was three we got our first chickens. They were free range, but would roost in the hen house at night. He tended to them and would play with them in the yard. One afternoon I heard Maddox screaming and saw him running as hard as he could across the yard. Behind him was our rooster… wings spread wide and claws coming right for Maddox. I, of course, ran to get Maddox and got the rooster away. Poor Maddox was traumatized!

Maddox’s issues with roosters didn’t end there. The next rooster we had was a naked-neck rooster. The poor rooster looked like an old man with a bad toupee, but that did not stop him from running the farm. One afternoon the boys were outside playing and I could hear Maddox yelling. That naked-neck rooster had chase Maddox into his ‘duck club’ (which is what the boys call their swing set playhouse) and Maddox was stuck. The rooster was circling the duck club and scratching his feet like a dog pawing the ground. Maddox of course was in hysterics and I had to go chase away that dang rooster.

At 7 Maddox is still very afraid of roosters and refuses to go in the pen with one! I guess some things scare you for life.