Thread: My Splendid Cock

Sounds like my mates

Originally Posted by DrWilly

Do they make good eating?

I was going to ask the same thing. I've choked a few chickens in me time.

^ Well, that's married life for you.


Austin passed away during the night and this was entirely my fault and I feel very guilty.

There's been a lot going on here over the past couple of weeks and I took my eye off the ball, and a week or so ago discovered that Austin was being attacked by a couple of young cockerels from last year's batch of chicks. I'd removed four cocks but completely forgot about these. Their mother's would have been the red egg-layers so they were much bigger and stronger than Austin who was a genuine jungle fowl.

Once I found out, these two immediately went to join the local temple flock... as did the black cock I had been planning to keep.



But the damage had been done... never again will I attempt to keep more than one cock. Poor old Austin had a damaged left wing and leg. There was nothing broken and I was hoping that he'd pull through but he just seemed to lose interest in life. I think he just lost his mojo.



So now I have no cock. I need to get another as they keep the girls under control and stop them fighting, and it's nice to have fertile eggs in case we decide to raise some more clutches of chicks in the future. I'm looking for another genuine jungle fowl as I like the fact that they're the ancestor of all domestic chickens but also magnificent looking birds to boot.

RIP Austin.

I buried Austin down by the pond but unfortunately Yogi witnessed the ceremony and has already tried to dig him up. He has no respect for this kind of thing.

mendip

I was going to say it must be your lucky day but that is not really right in respect to Austin, however i have just the boy you are looking for'
MIL has had to lock up one of the young roosters here as him and another (her favourite) would not stop fighting and they just went round and round stop and have a scuffle then round and round.
If she didn't lock him up there was going to be a dead cock for sure.

I can't bring down tomorrow but maybe Thursday or Friday next week if you want him.
I will try and get a picture later and you can decide if he's the boy for your girls.

I want a pure red jungle fowl cock Ootai.

Apparently that tuft of white feathers at the base of the tail is one of the characteristics.

There are many cocks around... we have just given six to the temple flock, but I like these jungle fowl.

Oh, and I'm after a couple of pure red jungle fowl girls as well so we can breed more. All of our hens are either the red egg layers or some kind of bantam mixes, or red egg layer/jungle fowl (Austin) mix.

The red egg-layer/jungle fowl mix offspring are good regular layers of small eggs, perfect for pickling.

Well having nothing better to do while I wait for my lunch to settle I went a took a couple of pictures of my/our cocks.


This is the one you could most likely have.


This is the one that runs with my red hens he's the oldest and doesn't bother the young bucks.


This is the one who thinks he is boss.


And this is the smart one as he runs around the yard just keeping out of the way of the others and goes about his business.

Mendip what did you say to do to get the pictures the right way up I believe they are rotated because I took them in landscape mode.

Mendip
The MiL has a couple of those females as well but you would have to come and see see her about getting one of them.
I will check how many there are here and see if she might part with one or two.

That's a splendid looking cock Ootai but I must admit I'm not convinced it's a pure breed jungle fowl. He just doesn't look quite right and I suspect there's some mix in there.

Do you have any idea of his progeny?

Originally Posted by Mendip

That's a splendid looking cock Ootai but I must admit I'm not convinced it's a pure breed jungle fowl. He just doesn't look quite right and I suspect there's some mix in there.

Do you have any idea of his progeny?

Truthful answer to your question is no I don't know.
However there are lots of chickens around our place that come and go as they come here to get the feed we give to our chickens.
The neighbours let theirs run wild and they have roosters that look like him so he may have come from there. Come to think about it MIL did say he belonged next door so not one she raised which makes sense why he gets attacked.
Lek is always telling me there are 'wild" chickens down in the forest east of our place and asks me if I can hear them calling.
She tells me they have a different call to our chickens so he could be from a raider from there.
I do know that I couple of the hens we have here make funny noises compared to our regular chickens so they might be the jungle hens and he could have come from them.


Anyway another thing is my picture is not high quality like the one above that you probably got off the net.
It was taken in a dark chicken house that is in a shaded area and I couldn't get close so I just zoomed in quite a bit.
In real life view he is really much better looking. Also he is only young so might blossom a bit as he gets older.
He does have the white tuff above his tail which I notice the others don't have.

Anyway as the Thai wives' say "up to you".

Ootai...

I don't want to criticise your cock but I'm going to turn you down.

I'm not convinced he's a pure jungle fowl and I don't want to take the chance because, as you know, I'm too soft for all this and once I took him on he would have a home for life, regardless of how he developed. I noticed he has the white tuft of feathers at the base of his tail but he just doesn't look right to me... possible a bit too well-built. The young jungle fowl I've had have been quite slender and more athletically built, if that makes sense. But many thanks for the offer.

The jungle fowl have a distinctive high-pitched crow which thankfully I can only just hear at night because our chicken run is much closer to the neighbour's house than ours. They get the full benefit from around 3am onward!

The gardener reckons he can sort this out no problem with some friends who live out in the sticks. I know the outlaws could help but there would always be strings attached so I'll leave the gardener with this. Another string to his bow... he really is a Godsend.

Originally Posted by Mendip

I buried Austin

I'd have plucked and buried him in the oven

Originally Posted by ootai

Mendip what did you say to do to get the pictures the right way up I believe they are rotated because I took them in landscape mode.

Lie on your side works for me

^ He had a name.

You can't eat a pet with a name.

Nonsense, i would. You just need to picture him with stuffing and gravy dribbling down his crispy brown leg, lying next to roast potatoes.

Originally Posted by malmomike77

Nonsense, i would. You just need to picture him with stuffing and gravy dribbling down his crispy brown leg, lying next to roast potatoes.

I wouldn't eat him either because he would be as tough as shit.
He has been running around trying to service 30+ hens for how long?

But a while back 1 of my red hens dropped off the perch literally, I found her dead under where she roosted. Anyway the SiL didn't give a shit about the risk of a disease killing the hen that maybe detrimental to humans if they ate the hen she just cooked it up and enjoyed it cause it was free.

Mendip no problems re the rooster you can have a look at him if you ever come for a visit, if he is still around that is.

Originally Posted by ootai

I wouldn't eat him either because he would be as tough as shit.

Nonsense, you haven't tried him

Feeding time for the chooks

They were scared of me but they overcame their fears when I brought out a plate of chopped mango from her tree.

These mangoes are bewts off a tiny tree and the kick the arse of my scraggly tiddlers from my behemoth tree.

Originally Posted by ootai

Well having nothing better to do while I wait for my lunch to settle I went a took a couple of pictures of my/our cocks.

This is the one you could most likely have.

This is the one that runs with my red hens he's the oldest and doesn't bother the young bucks.

This is the one who thinks he is boss.



And this is the smart one as he runs around the yard just keeping out of the way of the others and goes about his business.

Mendip what did you say to do to get the pictures the right way up I believe they are rotated because I took them in landscape mode.

I have found that my pictures are sideways no matter what. However, i take a screenshot of the picture and that posts perfectly on TD.

@looper - very nice chickens & mangoes.

That doesn't look like the lovely Thai lady, Ms Luzon or Ms Mindanao. Seems loopah is quite the playah...

Teakdoors top swordsman. Onya loopy.mightily impressed

Originally Posted by katie23

@looper - very nice chickens & mangoes.

That doesn't look like the lovely Thai lady, Ms Luzon or Ms Mindanao. Seems loopah is quite the playah...

That is a scandalous and scurrilous suggestion Katie

If a lady invites you round to squeeze her mangoes it would be churlish to demur

Anyway, on the plus column of my character ledger (since we are doing accounting) I did rescue this fine creature from the beaks of the chooks.

It is a monster, 8cm long and as fat as my finger. It was getting pecked on the lawn but survived the onslaught and I brought it home in a jar and gave it some capsicum to eat.

And it had babies (those are eggs on the right). Which means that is a lady. Good on me.

I also kept the seed from the pygmy mango tree fruit we ate and will try to grow one. Beats trying to keep the bats off a 7 metre tall monster tree that only grows scabby scragglers.

Any idea what breed this is Mendip?

I'd finally got the Middlesboro game and delusions of FA cup grandeur out of my head, then this...