Chanticleer

When I bought the two-day-old chicks last summer, This is what I had in mind: specifically, at least one banty rooster that looked just like Chanticleer, shown here with Anna--will look like when mature. Now, as a very young cockerel, he already is well on the way toward my ideal. The other thing I had in mind was that I was raising chickens merely for aesthetic reasons. I wanted to hear that music again, especially the crowing of roosters. Pure nostalgia. And just to enjoy watching them and being with them, as our youngest grandchild is doing in the picture. I am raising chickens just to enjoy, just for the out-and-out fun of it. Chanticleer is one of the smaller two of these little banties, and, you will not be surprised to learn, that he was the first to fly up and eat on my lap and from my hand. One day as I sat with the flock, cutting up an apple core to portion out to them, this little Ginger Red Old English Game Bantam rooster flew first onto my lap, then atop my head. My kind of fun. A few of us were gathered in Jean and Maxine’s home to eat dinner and visit. When during the course of conversation, I noted that only rarely did I attend ball games or watch television. Dallas Huston instantly asked, "If you don’t go to ball game or watch TV, what do you do for fun?" Now you know. One thing I do for fun is to sit in the back yard with a banty rooster on top of my head. Beats ball games or anything on the vidiot screen, at least for me. To each her own. At least three or four of these birds are cockerels. Now six-months-old, their voices have almost completed the adolescent "change of voice." Among these backyard voices, Chanticleer, the highest tenor, is the most frequent singer of the flock. I like them all; I favor this little fellow.