So I did that. I paid extra to have my 6 chicks sexed. One died young, so I really got five chickens. That's fine - mortality is a thing, it's not abnormal to lose one. But now I'm feeling a little ripped off because we've ended up with not one, but TWO roosters!
Roosters are illegal to keep in most cities because of noise complaints. The thing that makes roosters different than any other illegal animal, is that you don't know for certain what you're getting when you get a chick. Even after a few weeks, it can be difficult to tell if your chick is just a young hen going through a growth spurt or if she's actually a rooster instead. Chicks aren't illegal to have, so it's like I bought a totally legal, inoffensive good that slowly turned into illegal contraband.Usually I have a good sense of how long I have until the cops come knocking on our door, because the first warning is usually a noise complaint from a neighbor. This time was different.
Here's what I posted on Facebook about the whole ordeal:
"This is what urban farming looks like on a Tuesday night. Let's recap the day:
6:45am - 🚔 police come knocking on windows and doors until someone answers and demand that my roosters be off the premises by tomorrow morning. So many questions, and so many things wrong with this situation but OKAY.
9:30am - actually wake up, begin posting on poultry Facebook groups, reactivate the old BackYardChickens account and start posting on the forums there. 👩💻
9:45am - *taps into inner ~cOuNtRY gUrL~~* 👩🌾 think about killing them on site, as a plan C. Is that even legal here? Dry ice or chopping block? What's more humane? What's less messy?
10:00am - revelation: hey, I wonder if the feed store I go to knows of any resources that can help. Call the feed store, they do! A lady in Ojai does rooster rehoming. Awesome! Hmm, almost 2 hours to Ojai so 4 hours round trip, without traffic/delays, and I have to be at work at 3pm. Not gonna work. Guess I'll go after work.
11:00am - miracle! 🙌Someone on the NorCal poultry group is also living in SoCal and breeds Andalusians! Lucky me, I've got a plan A and a plan B now.
12:00pm - resend an email to the chick supply company explaining that I purchased 6 chicks that were guaranteed to be female, one died early and two were male. I'm left with 3 of 6; shouldn't I get 50% of my money back? No, I don't want to be refunded the $4 per chick, I want to be refunded the $65 it cost to ship them and the extra money I paid to have them "guaranteed" to be female.
3:00pm - go to work, do the thing, check my phone for updates regularly.
6:15pm - return home (short day, woo!) to find an Animal Control Officer there to greet me...🤔 to...remind me?... 🤔that roosters.... are illegal? 🤔In case the window banging at 6:45am wasn't clear. ACO says "but do you have chickens?" I say, "yes." He says, "Ok well you can keep chickens but not roosters." I explain, "a rooster is a male chicken." He repeats, "yeah, exactly. You can have chickens but not roosters." 🙄 Give up, pudding cup. Not the hill to die on. Just let him write down all your contact info so they can bug you tomorrow. Why is he taking so long? Is he sketching my face? Is he just re-drawing my drivers license? Why is his notebook so tiny?
But seriously, if your job is to enforce laws about animals can the training at least include basic information on said animals? Imagine going to the humane society and saying "I would like a dog" and they respond "would you like a pet, or a dog? We have both pets and dogs here." You would immediately think they were unqualified to perform a job that specifically requires the working knowledge that dogs fall under the umbrella term of "pets."
ACO asks again, "so there will be no roosters on the premises tomorrow?" I nod, "yes, I am literally about to put them in a cardboard box and drive them to their new owners. They will be gone in 10 minutes." He says, "okay." I can't bite my tongue here, but I should. I let him know, "y'know, I've been raising chickens in cities for a long time now and I've never had such a short window of time to relocate an animal. It seems very unusual to me." He responds with "well roosters are illegal to keep in Pasadena." Got it, we covered that.
6:30pm - grab the roos and some newspaper, put them in a lined box, make sure it stays closed, get it in the car and get on the road. 🚙
6:45pm - call parents, rant for half an hour about everything, wish for more space and more understanding of urban chicken raising. Hope for a better future, yell about the present. 😡
8:00pm - arrive at meet-up location (what is this, a drug deal?! ) and chat with these lovely people who plan to breed my gorgeous boys. Make plans to keep in touch and perhaps get to raise some of their offspring! Sweet deal.
9:30pm - get home, after stopping through In-N-Out. Wonder if the hens are lonely out there. They probably are. This whole thing sucks, I wish I could change it. I wish people understood that I didn't purposefully buy roosters knowing they couldn't be kept in the city. Roosters are an unfortunate risk of raising chicks, even if you take all the right steps to avoid it. They should have given me more time. They shouldn't have banged on our windows at 6:45am. They should have handled it better, and they could have if they knew more. Maybe I can teach them. Maybe tomorrow."
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