Category Archives: Ducks

One of these birds is not like the others... One of these birds doesn't belong...

Every time I see Wimpy the rooster wandering around with his flock of Muscovy girls that old song from Sesame Street pops into my head!

We procured Wimpy at the Metchosin Poultry Swap thinking we’d add him to our new flock of young laying hens. While we were getting the portable pens ready (the chickens will be moved from place to place, grazing and eating bugs – more on how we’re setting this up in another post), we needed somewhere to put Wimpy. We put him in with the Bantam flock thinking he was so much bigger than everybody else he would hold his own just fine. Turns out, in the world of chickens, size does not matter.

The Bantam roosters (we have nine of them – they all get along fine as they were raised together) are perhaps a quarter of the size of the hefty Wimpy, but they had no mercy for their larger roomie. They ganged up and harassed him relentlessly until the poor guy wouldn’t come out of the corner where the Bantams had driven him.

The sight was so pathetic (every time Wimpy even looked at the rest of the flock, the Bantams charged him until he resumed full cowering position in the corner) we rescued him and put him in with the Muscovy girls. The ducks are so sweet they accepted him into their group with no problems at all. Despite a few confused attempts at mounting the girls (Wimpy! that will never work!) Wimpy has settled in nicely with his new pals.

He is first into the duck house at night where he takes his spot on the roost above the girls’ nest boxes and roosting shelf. He starts crowing in there just before dawn and then patrols about most self-importantly after everyone gets let out in the morning. He is the first on the scene every time a human appears, first to call out at the sight of a raven overhead, and first to investigate when a couple of the Muscovy drakes start squabbling over the girls.