Farewell Phil

We knew this day was coming. We've been telling the kids that as soon as Phyllis (now Phil) began to crow HE had to go. Well, in his 4 month adolescent voice he's been cracking out a ton of crows. He actually sounds like a dying cat, but with each crow he's getting a little better. We wanted to keep him long enough to hear his full mature crow, but the neighbors thought differently.

Today we had a friendly officer of the law leave us a notice on our door. Apparently they don't have these kind of complaints often and don't have an official form for crowing roosters, so he left a "Barking Dog Complaint" notice and wrote "chickens?" We got a good laugh from that. When I got home, I gave him a call and told him I knew what the notice was for and that yes we had an adolescent rooster that was learning to crow. He said as he was knocking on our door he could hear this strange sound and wasn't sure what it was. Thus the "chickens?" comment on the card. I told him I was boxing Phil up as we speak and taking him to the Rooster Rescue program from the place we bought these chicks.

As I loaded Phil into the box, the thought did cross my mind of what a great meal he would make. He's a huge bird, even at just 4 months old. I decided otherwise with the thought of having to pluck feathers, pull out innards, and further traumatize the kids from their already rough week of losing pets.It is amazing that this little fluff ball turned into this huge rooster in just 4 months. For weekly size comparisons of his growth, here are the links to 8 Weeks Old, 6 Weeks Old, 5 Weeks Old, 4 Weeks Old, 3 Weeks Old, 2 Weeks Old, 1 Week Old and New Chicks.

Farewell Phil, it's been nice knowing you and hopefully some other Farmer Jon will enjoy having you keep his hens company.