My sister lost her cockeral to the damm fox again. So seeing that she had succesfully rehomed some ex-batt hens in the past, she took herself off to the local rescue center in the hope of bringing home a nice young cockeral for her girls, who were missing their male company.

"Well" said the nice young girl at the rescue home, "Have you room for a rescue turkey too?"
She smiled sweetly and lead my sister to a loose box, where the male turkey sat in his crate.
"We have just had him in. He was found wandering along a road all alone and needs a home ASAP, poor thing. "He's quite old, but our vet says, very, very healthy".
"OK" says sis, "He looks sad and lonely. I'll take him too."

Back home sis and OH stand around the crate for a moment, then open the door.
Out comes the old turkey. He slowly stands up to his full height, unravelles his tucked up wings, lifts his long extendable for ever neck, drops this huge bright red and blue dangly thing from under his chin, fluffs and shakes out his abndance of feathers, takes a deep breath, streches out a knobbly leg and makes a turkey call(gobble, gobble, gobble), only a mother could love

My BIL nearly passes out. But first he throws my sis a look, "God....not again you MAD, MAD woman!!!!"
SIS draws in a sharp breath and whips her hands to her face and she only dare peek through her open fingers. They cannot believe how huge this thing is! He has become 3x the size of the crate and more!

She then rushes out to buy another house for him as there is no way he will fit through the hen house door is there?
She spends £100 on a dog kennel, that he will not go in!

That night, despite all attempts to persuade him otherwise and with the use of a wood saw, he resides with the girls. He unbelievably forced himself through the little hole of the coop, inch, by painfull inch and then sits contentedly under the perches, filling the whole house.

The next morning the kids came running back into the house crying on first sight of him. He now moves around the garden like a lumbering great heavyweight, being feed slices of best bread and following the kids around the lawn, happy and in heaven.

"Never mind about the £100 spent on the new house" Says sis....."It'll do for the geese I'm gonna get" 

Wonderful story!

>a nice young cockeral for her girls, who were missing their male company.

Whoever wrote that doesn't know that battery hens never see a cockerel in their lives ... ;)

....doesn't mean that they don't miss the boys !...hens are so much more laid back and happier with a cockeral around - they can be terrible bullies otherwise and can literally 'hen peck' a weaker hen to death. Battery hens live a life far removed from how they are supposed to live - including never having male company !.

Yvonne

Our hens were always much more relaxed and peaceful when the cockerels had gone. :)

ROTFL!!  I think that's wonderful :d

Debs