Well, the Ross Chicken experiment is over, at least this first one. A person I communicated with on the Backyard Chickens forum said that selective breeds like this weren't great to raise other than for the meat - but I think I knew that before I read it. Both Bob and Mildred were big and slow, they were too big to fly or even try and roost, and after a time they didn't seem healthy. They had lived far beyond their intended life span, which in this case is not necessarily a healthy thing for them. So the Rosses are now gone, and if I get any more, it will be to raise them for their intended purpose - butchering at or around 42 days.

I'm going to miss Bob's crowing - but he hadn't done it for a while, so I guess I was already missing it. But one of the RIR's I got from Tractor Supply looks like it might be a little roo, so just give it some time (as I mentioned, I decided to play the genetic lottery with the RIR's and get straight run in the hopes of bagging at least one roo). And the Rosses did get me started with this whole chicken raising thing, thanks to my daughter signing up to win a pair at the fair last year.

Today I spent a full work day on the coop. I cleaned out the winter's worth of deep litter accumulation, took out the old wire kennel that was Bob's quarters and cleaned that up. I finished putting up chicken wire over the inside of the coop to cover gaps in the walls (the coop is made from a stall in my father-in-law's old barn). Then I build a chick gate out of chicken wire and wood and a couple of hook-and-eye fasteners and cordoned off the back quarter of the coop for them and hung the heat lamp up. Transferred the chicks, who were excited to be in expansive new digs (they'd been living in a computer and a monitor box that I'd duct taped together and put chicken wire over). Carted the old quarters out to the burning pile and lit it, then vacuumed up in the house and did some dusting in the area - hopefully my wife will be happy about that.

At this writing I'm not sure how the Reds are going to take their new neighbors. When I took the chicks out, the Reds heard them peeping and one of them made a throaty growling sort of sound. They've spent most of the day out by the goat-stripped willow tree and picking through the pile of manure I shoveled out of their quarters (the goats seemed to enjoy the manure, too - weird). At one point they ended up in the coop and one of them ran over to check out the chicks. The chicks froze when they heard them, but then one of them broke from the group and went toward the wire to check out the Red.

I'll give them a week or two to get used to each other - and another couple of weeks for the chicks to get a little bigger, perhaps. Then maybe they'll be one big happy family and the Reds will start laying again - something other than soft shellers. I've been leaving oyster shell out for them, but I think most of the problem was stress generated by the tyrannical Mildred. Now that she's gone, there should be less stress for everyone involved.