Roosters: Double Edged Sword for Preppers
Kevin Felts 03.10.17
Something happened during the winter of 2015 that sent up red flags. I knew roosters can be heard for a long way, but this made me take a step back.
It was a typical Southeast Texas winter morning. The skies were overcast, the wind was still, and the air was cool. I walked out on the deck of my house to enjoy the peace and quiet that country life has to offer. While enjoying the fresh cool air, I heard the faint crow of a rooster in the distance.
I had an idea whose rooster it was. I had met the guy a few months earlier at the local corner store. The problem was, the rooster was about a mile from my house in a straight line. I know pretty much the exact distance using Google earth, but OPSEC says I can not post that kind of information.
This is a rural area. There are nothing but trees and a couple of small creeks between my house and the house where the rooster is at.
If there were ever a collapse of society (viral plague, nuclear war, whatever it may be), a crowing rooster would be a dinner bell. A dinner bell that I know can be heard from a mile away. This is a serious violation of OPSEC in a post-collapse world.
On the other side of the coin, if you want a sustainable chicken flock you have to have roosters. Without a couple of roosters and several broody hens, no chicks will be hatched to the replace the chickens that are butchered or die from other causes. Every year I lose a few chickens to predators.
If you want to have a self-sustaining chicken flock, you need at least two roosters. That is two dinner bells with a one mile range that may attract hungry people.
Roosters Double Edged Sword
It is not if, but when, there is a major disruption of society, people will be looking for food. Even the experts admit we are not prepared for a mutated Bird Flu. If a new strain of the flu is able to infect chickens and other poultry, we would be in some serious trouble.
History has proven time and time again that societies will be disrupted. Whether it was the Plague of Justinian (541–542), Black Death (1348 – 1350), or the 1918 flu pandemic (1918 – 1920), human society is a house of cards waiting to fall.
