A recent visit to Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass., offered plenty of reminders — one every few minutes, in fact — that there’s a very good reason why our tiny flock includes no roosters.
We have a limited amount of space on our city lot in Augusta, Maine. And caring for three to four hens is quite enough work without adding newborn chicks to the equation. But the main reason we are rooster-free is this: roosters crow. Hens make their share of noise too, especially when agitated or laying. But even at their most boisterous, they don’t pierce the morning calm with the decibel-busting zeal of a rooster. Hens are not as noisy as roosters, and they are noisy less frequently.
We have a limited amount of space on our city lot in Augusta, Maine. And caring for three to four hens is quite enough work without adding newborn chicks to the equation. But the main reason we are rooster-free is this: roosters crow. Hens make their share of noise too, especially when agitated or laying. But even at their most boisterous, they don’t pierce the morning calm with the decibel-busting zeal of a rooster. Hens are not as noisy as roosters, and they are noisy less frequently.
Hancock Shaker Village is a living-history museum that takes up 750 acres in the Berkshires. It addition to providing a home for 20 authentic historic buildings full of artifacts, the village is a working farm, with crops and livestock.
When Liz and I visited the village last Thursday with friends Al and Judy, I was pleased to see that the map we picked up at the entrance listed poultry among the resident livestock. But it would have made no difference if the map had been silent on that subject, because the animals themselves were not.
As soon as we emerged from the admissions building and set foot in the village, an unmistakable sound greeted our ears: roosters talking up a storm. All of the chickens were still several hundred yards away from us at that point, but the roosters — there were at least three of them — were making such a ruckus that you might have thought they were only a few feet away.
When we finally worked our way out to the henhouse and the surrounding fields, we saw plenty of hens going about their business and clucking gently. The roosters, by contrast, blasted out a full-throated cock-a-doodle-doo every minute or two as they strutted their stuff or perched atop fence posts.
I’m sure if one of their cousins found his way into our city flock, the neighbors would start making loud, shrill sounds of their own.
When Liz and I visited the village last Thursday with friends Al and Judy, I was pleased to see that the map we picked up at the entrance listed poultry among the resident livestock. But it would have made no difference if the map had been silent on that subject, because the animals themselves were not.
As soon as we emerged from the admissions building and set foot in the village, an unmistakable sound greeted our ears: roosters talking up a storm. All of the chickens were still several hundred yards away from us at that point, but the roosters — there were at least three of them — were making such a ruckus that you might have thought they were only a few feet away.
When we finally worked our way out to the henhouse and the surrounding fields, we saw plenty of hens going about their business and clucking gently. The roosters, by contrast, blasted out a full-throated cock-a-doodle-doo every minute or two as they strutted their stuff or perched atop fence posts.
I’m sure if one of their cousins found his way into our city flock, the neighbors would start making loud, shrill sounds of their own.
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| Roosters watch over their flock at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass., on July 31. |
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