The Cloaca Kiss
and other fun things chickens do! PLUS AN UPCYCLED SEWING PROJECT!
Welcome to Apple & Radish Chronicles: Where Handmade Meets Homegrown. 🌷Create comfort, joy and meaning with simple, sustainable handmade and homegrown projects - sent to your inbox weekly - with fun tutorials, recipes and classes! Think of this as your ultimate cottage core living guide - but with more spice.😅 💐 🌼 🌈
Howdy,
It’s possible to tell the sex of chicks when they’re a few days old, but not by ordinary folk, such as you and I. That skill is performed by highly trained experts. Rarely seen in everyday life. That’s why, twelve weeks after bringing home three tiny chicks from her kid’s school ‘egg hatching experience’, my friend realised she had herself a rooster.
High pitched, adolescent cock-a-doodle-doos at four in the morning gave it away. Lucky for her it was just one - I’ve known families who’ve brought home three out of three roosters from such programs.
Alas! Although she would have liked to keep him, my friend lived where roosters were firmly frowned upon.
That’s how Billy came to live with us - rooster heaven! Not literally. Sadly many are sent to actual rooster heaven when they find themselves in suburbia.
Billy was one of the lucky ones.
Acres of green grass, weeds and worms plus a flock of a dozen lovely hens. Slight problem though. Turns out Billy is a bantam. A small breed. Our hens are normal to large size girls. Not an ideal match for successful chicken mating.
Have you seen chickens mate?
If not, allow me to explain the process. This was all new to me when we had our first rooster who - surprise, surprise - was from a school hatching program too. Unless you grew up on a farm, did ag science or became a vet - this stuff is not common knowledge. I was fascinated!
Perhaps you are curious about the love life of chickens also?
First the rooster does a funny little dance. It’s hilarious! Don’t tell Billy I said that. He takes himself very seriously. Just look at him!
When I first saw this age old performance by George, our very first rooster many years ago, I thought he was having a seizure. I’ve since learned it’s traditional foreplay in the mating ritual of chickens.
It goes like this - rooster sidles close to a hen that’s caught his eye (or is just unlucky enough to be in the vicinity) and stretches one wing out to the side at an awkward angle then does a jerky little hopping dance around in a circle, while also clucking in a weird way. I imagine he’s putting on his sexiest voice - ‘Hey lady, check me out! You ever seen moves like these before??’. This ‘dance’ lasts a few seconds and the hen in question, who is most often minding her own business scratching away for grubs under the lime tree, understands what’s now expected of her and usually dutifully (do I detect a sigh?) squats herself down with wings slightly ajar to form a platform for the rooster to climb on. The chicken version of the table top position in yoga - though not usually the first signal for intercourse for humans - thank goodness! Yoga classes would have a whole different vibe!
Anyway, the next bit looks even less pleasant for poor Ms Hen.
Once the rooster is balanced on her back, he grabs her comb (the red bit on top of her head) and pulls it until her rear end rises up. He then joins his cloaca (bottom hole - chickens only have one) with hers and the job is done. There is no penetration - sperm is transferred via this “cloacal kiss” (the actual term! Did not make that up). It’s over very quickly. He hops down and struts off. She shakes herself off with an exasperated ruffle and carries on with her day, I imagine, looking forward to a solid debrief with her sisters at the water bowl before bed.
Billy’s problem is that, while glossy and handsome, he’s also very small. So for the first while, he was going through all the motions but entirely missing the cloaca of his hen. No-one seemed concerned. In fact, the way he carried on afterwards, so proud of himself, you’d think he was siring legends across the land.
Lately though, he does seem to have gotten better at it and is perching himself further back on the lady hen for a more successful meeting of the cloacas. Or maybe one of the older girls had a quiet word with him on the roosting perch one night. Either way, he has mastered the cloacal kiss. Well done Billy!
Even though consent is clearly a wobbly concept in the chicken world, Billy does his best to be a good rooster for his ladies. Due to his slight frame, he can fly out of the chicken coop in the mornings but the hens cannot. Every morning at day break he gets out over the two and a half meter mesh wall and yells at us to let his girls out - pronto! Marching back and forth in front of the pen, he demands the girls’ freedom in his loudest rooster chant. Luckily we have very kind (or deaf) neighbours.
After breakfast, I open the chicken house to let them free range and the flock is reunited with their trusty (lusty) leader. Off they bustle, excited to forage for grasshoppers and slugs.
Billy always has his eye out for nourishing morsels and when he finds something special he clucks in the same way humans intuitively call chickens to their dinner - ‘took took took took took!’ - while pointing his beak like a laser directly down at the treat he’s found. Perhaps a fat seed or a dead beetle. Sometimes he picks it up and puts it down again - over and over - to prove he’s not lying. And he’s saving it for them. This is really good! You should have this! Come and get it!
A hen will race over and snatch up the prize. No word of thanks to Billy that I can detect. But then again. Fair enough, considering.
This goes on all day (in between rooster dances). Billy makes sure his ladies eat before he takes from the grain dish and sounds the alarm if he thinks he sees a hawk. Then just as the sun is setting he herds them all back to the chicken coop. A couple of the younger ones like to stay out late - still scratching and pecking under the mulberry tree, long after the others are settling and mumbling to each other on the perch. Completely ignorant of Billy’s growing anxiety and frustration, I half expect one of the teenage hens to look around, reach up, yank out an earpod and say ‘what?!’. That’s it girls. Keep your independence! Eventually though, they too saunter back home and hop contentedly into bed.
This week’s lesson is a chicken-adjacent, beginner friendly sewing project that makes a great gift while reducing waste.
LEARN TO MAKE A FULLY LINED, CHICKEN FEED TOTE BAG! 🐓🌻🔥💜
I have a step by step tutorial showing you how to turn your feed bags into gorgeous lined tote bags. The lining makes them extra special - I used a tartan flannel fabric here - and you might find you use them for more than just your groceries. Beach, picnics, outings and more! These are fun to make and a wonderful way to reduce waste.
I’ve made many of these over the years and I find other shopping bags come and go but these are the ones I consistently reach for. Something about their size, shape and weight make them nice to use.
Paid subscribers receive a different lesson each week with gorgeously presented printable pdf instructions. You might like to print them all out and keep them in a special folder so you have them handy when the mood strikes you to make something fun (or the world as we know it ends and you need to know how to make stuff 🙃🌱🧡)
