I may have already mentioned hormones and the effect on my garden before (see 'Just Another Day') however, 'things' have come to something of a head. Erm, literally in one case...
To a point, hormones can make for some amusement, as in the aforementioned blog. Beyond this point, there be dragons.
In the 'duck pond', the swans are the unchallenged rulers. With two exceptions. The Black Swans versus the Mute swans, and me against the world.
The black swans are an old adversary. They and I have come to an agreement. As long as I dress up as a piece of fencing, they will give up their infertile pre-omelettes.
I had assumed that the Mute Swans would abide by the same accord. Sadly, as you may have seen in this post; they did not.
Over time, extracting their tribute has become more and more difficult. Add to this the proximity of their preferred nesting site to the 'human-safe' area, well, changes were required.
There was also a pre-existing problem that needed to be alleviated, that of the serial rapists. The three Indian Runner Ducks like nothing more than a gang bang. That this extreme behaviour (hormonally driven) had the minor side effect of killing their erstwhile lover; well, c'est la vie. Or not, in this case.
All the above hormonal extremes meant that I needed to provide a larger 'safe' area for humans and those ducks that found themselves at the bottom of the pecking order. Or, more bluntly, the bottom of the raping and murdering order.
Thus, a day was spent building an enlarged fenced-off area. The fencing was designed to keep out aggressive swans and over-amorous ducks alike. Doing this was not too straightforward, as the above-mentioned mute swans were, once again, not in agreement with my wishes. At every stage they tried to break down the newly constructed fencing. Fast-setting cement helped, but having three arms would have been better. One to dig, one to hold the posts and fencing in place, and a third to beat off the attacking swans.
These efforts were finally successful. Peace once more descended upon the duck pond.
The same could not, however, be said for the aviary.
During summer last year, disaster struck in the aviary in the form of a plague of tiny harvest mites. The heat of summer led to an explosive reproduction of these little pests. They bit me, causing a rash that took months to go. The effect on the birds was much worse. The mites' blood-sucking activities led to severe anaemia, killing a young peafowl and a chicken. It also led to the death of my only cockerel.
Having got the parasites under control, I rescued five eggs from the fridge, in the hope that they had been fertilised by the ailing rooster, and put them in an incubator. I only needed one cockerel, so I felt my chances were good when three of the eggs hatched. I was too lucky; all three turned out to be male.
Over time, the three cocks were became more aggressive. For several months they had been fighting each other; hence the red neck:
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| a Red-necked Rooster |
They attacked and killed a poorly duck I put in there for safe keeping. This week they attacked my grandkids. And me.
Attacking little children is one thing, but attacking me...
Thus, reluctantly, the time had come. Two of them, the most aggressive, were also a little deformed. I guess this had given them an inferiority complex.
For crimes against humanity: the guillotine.
They didn't seem happy...
When the time arrived and the blade was sharpened, it proved a little more difficult than I thought. Once caught, chickens are easy to control, and basically lie still as if hypnotized, making the axe stroke easy. The difficult part was catching the little bastards. Whereas previously they would attack me on sight, when I entered the aviary with bad intent, they all buggered off to the far end.
Well, I finally caught them, and after the usual headless chicken run-around routine, they were quietly disposed of.
Peace has descended here also.
All this because of hormones.
As I'm sure you are aware, hormones can cause problems in other species too, especially where cocks and innuendos are involved...
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An Upright Citizen
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