Rooo* (for Rooster, etc.)

Urban chickens have never been more popular than they are now.  Prospective hobby farmers can find an astonishing variety of small coops for purchase not only on sites such as mypetchicken.com and backyardchickens.com, but also from major retailers such as Sam’s Club and Costco.  There are numerous books, Web sites, and blogs devoted to the subject of raising and keeping poultry–everything to help a newbie get started.

One question that seems to come up frequently is whether you need a rooster for eggs.  As custodians of a backyard flock of four hens, we hear this a lot.  In short, the answer is “no.”  You need a rooster for baby chickens. (Think of human females–it’s actually the same story.)

If you’ve never had chickens, it’s impossible to believe how entertaining and fun they can be.  They’ve become part of the family, just like our dogs and cats, and even more surprising, the birds, canines, and felines all get along.

A search for Rooo* pulls up 6 entries in OhioLINK and 406 in WorldCat.  Many have nothing to do with roosters, and more important, many are not actually typos.  So finding and correcting the errors in your own catalog should give you something to crow about.

(Our Pomeranian Panda with the backyard hens)

Deb Kulczak