Pictured above from left: Oreo, Macaroon, and Gingersnap

I recently had to re-home a rooster for the first time. It was a difficult experience emotionally but one of the many hard choices that you often have to face when homesteading. For context, I have never ever had to re-home a pet before. I love my animals deeply, even my livestock, and consider them all beloved life-long commitments. However, like so many others of you out there in the backyard chicken world, I have too many roosters. I am taking measures to restore balance in my flock, and my rooster Ginger unfortunately could not be part of that balance. We were very grateful to find another couple, also new homesteaders, who needed a rooster. We made it a point to place him responsibly in a new home where he would receive good care and be in conditions where he could thrive. Ginger had become increasingly aggressive here on our farm because we couldn’t provide him with the circumstances he needed to thrive. While my other roosters have created a balance amongst themselves Ginger never seemed to find a role and was constantly at odds with other roosters and hens alike. He had physically harmed me on multiple occasions despite all of my efforts to improve his behavior, the hard truth was we did not have the conditions he needed to be his best self here in our backyard. I’m grateful to his new family for providing him the placement he needed to be the rooster he was always meant to be.