Dead Sexy Rooster

In case you did not grow up on a farm, you should know that roosters are the bastards of the animal kingdom.  If you believe in Karma, you do not want to come back as a rooster.  They are, for the most part, jerks.  They are the social equivalent of that person you worked with, that was like a fart in the room, personified.  They are the animal equivalent of a mini Tyrannosaurus Rex, with feathers and a beak instead of jaws.  Don't forget the razor sharp claws, they definitely have those.

They use them, too.  I have friends that say that their roosters fought off foxes, protecting their hens to the death.

We came upon our first rooster, of course, by accident.  I say of course because unless you have lots of space,  lots of predators and or luck or don't know any better, you probably wouldn't get a rooster on purpose.

If you have lots of space, maybe a mean rooster would never have a reason to attack you.  If you have lots of predators, a rooster would come in handy to protect your hens.  If you're lucky, you might get a nice rooster that doesn't perceive people as a threat and will never attack you (we have a nice rooster  named Mitch that has never attacked any of us which we attribute to his asexuality, but that's another story.)

Our first flock of chickens was a backyard flock in town, consisting of four adorable chicks living inside a small aviary and a garden shed turned into an insulated chicken coop.  I made the fatal mistake (and farmer people, learn from this) of allowing my children to choose which chicks to take home.  My children chose the most 'interesting' looking chicks, the ones with a spot here, or a dash of color there.  NEVER DO THIS!   Choose the most homogeneous looking chicks.  Of the three chicks, which were all supposed to be female, one of them, aptly named Tornado, turned out to be a rooster.  At first, being beginner chicken ranchers, we thought, "Oh!  This hen has really beautiful feathers!  And oh!  She really has a bigger comb and tail feathers."  Alas, those are tell tale signs that you have a rooster on your hands.  If you're smart, you will give him away that very instant, while he's still cute and before he becomes lethal.

The sure fire cue we had a rooster on our hands was when he began to crow, usually around months 4-6.  Until that point, we thought he was a larger, featherier, comb-ier hen.  But when a rooster crows, you know, its not a hen.  That sounds like a parable.  It is.  So our rooster crowed, and crowed and crowed.  Despite urban legend, they don't just crow in the morning, they crow all day long.  A truck drives by, the rooster crows.  A person walks by, the rooster crows.  A tree falls in the forest 200 miles away, the rooster crows.  Luckily, our neighbors were inside most of the time and either didn't notice or didn't mind because we weren't supposed to have roosters in town.

Then, one day, the rooster tried to jump onto my 2 year olds head.  I remember thinking, "That was weird.  Oh, you crazy thing!  Tornado, you're so crazy!"  Then, later that same day, Tornado leaped into the air, flailed his claws, flapped his wings and came down onto Francesca's wrist with a peck.  It was an attack.  The youthful equivalent of a Kindergartner flailing their arms like a windmill.

But it became worse.  Tornado attacked everyone.  Young, old, big or small, there was no opponent too large to intimidate this fierce predator.  He would puff himself up, like that velociraptor in Jurrasic Park, fanning out his neck feathers, charge at full speed while flapping his wings, leap into the air, Kung-Foo style, Karate kick like a cat fighting a dog but with his huge taloned feet and then follow through with his sharp beak and then repeat, repeat, repeat, until kicked away with a boot.  It became apparent that we needed to find a new home for Tornado when we realized that we were afraid to venture into our own backyard without arming ourselves with a shovel.  That's not a good feeling.

So after a quick Craigslist ad, a couple came to retrieve Tornado to "protect their girls."  Later, we stopped by to visit Tornado and upon opening the door to greet us, his new owner explained, "He's a Turd!"

And so it is with our latest accidental rooster, Billy Idol.  Billy is a Buff Laced Polish rooster and has a dazzling head dress of feathers.  Unfortunately, he's prone to sneak up on you if you're say, three or six years old and attempt to destroy you with claws of death and beating wings of fury.  And another thing, roosters won't attack you when you expect it.  They'll sneak up on  you when you least expect it.  Its really like having a live monster living at your farm.  You just never know when they'll attack.  Not the sort of thing you want around if you're three years old.

The last time he attacked, Cecilia and I were happily combing out our pony, Princess, singing songs, la, la, la, Cecilia turned around and WHAMMO!  Scratching talons in your face, flapping wings, scaring the bejesus out of you.  Cecilia screamed bloody murder, I kicked him away and he came at me!  The little sh*t!  Luckily, its winter and we're bundled to the hilt so no harm done.

I've read that you're not supposed to counter attack a rooster but, to throw them off and present yourself as something other than a threat, you're supposed to pick them up and carry them around.  They don't know what to do or where to file your actions and stop attacking.  However, when something comes at me, or my children with the claws of death, my first instinct isn't to scoop it up like its a cuddly kitten.  Fight or flight kicks in and I turn into a Neanderthal and fight with all my might, mosh pit style.  Maybe someday, I'll be able to compose myself enough to cuddle an attacking cock, but for now, I think I'll turn to Craigslist and say my goodbyes.