The big girls are up and cruising in this earl Spring sun! This is The Shaffer's Sanke 'Dumplin' born here 8 or so years ago. She's 32" now.

One of the first priorities in Spring chores is to get new bird netting up.  The snow and ice storms brought all of the bird netting on the farm down.  The blue herons here in this part of NC are relentless in their fly-overs,... and these filtered holding tanks would be an epic buffet for them.

This is our old rooster,... old by rooster years,... for so many years HE was the head rooster, always protecting his hens, and always keeping the other 2 roosters in line,... both of which were his sons.  Now, just recently he disappeared 2 times,... once for 4 days, and most recently he was gone for 2 weeks.  He had never disappeared in the years before,... so this time I wrote him off as Fox bait.  Well, he reappeared this week,... healthy looking,... but still, the pecking order here has changed.  Now this old rooster stays up in his sleeping tree all the time.  What is happening is IF he comes down, the younger rooster will peck him and pick on him constantly.  This is probably why he disappeared for 2 weeks.  In the animal kingdom, rather than respect their elders the old are pushed out,... forced out.  Tough livin'.

Here's the old rooster in the tree.  I've been feeding him up there.  The 3rd pic is the young rooster on the ground.  The new dominant male.