The Feral Rooster

[Owly055]

In a recent conversation with a family member who lives in "urbia".... A place and lifestyle I can barely relate to, the topic of chickens wandering the streets came up......The opinion expressed was that they had a "home" that they returned to........ I almost burst out laughing.... I've been in Hawaii where it is infested with feral chickens, and this place being an "urb" on the "left coast", is an excellent environment for feral chickens........

Of course hens are legal, but roosters are illegal........... go figure!! Talk about sexism!!! Animals are tolerated as long as they "conform"..... Well the truth is that humans are tolerated as long as they conform.... People follow their dogs around with a shovel and scoop up poop..........and I have to admit that if I saw someone on the streets of urbia with a dog that pooped and they didn't scoop it up, I'd probably reach down with my bare hands and throw it in their face!! Hopefully God would strike me dead if I didn't!! Why would you have a dog in the city?

The PCP (political correctness police) roam the streets of this blighted town, and if they don't nick you for being politically incorrect, at the very least everybody around you will focus their outrage on you "like a laser beam" with the idea that their disapproval will shame you into being correct next time.......... I delight in outraging these rules........There is absolutely NOTHING I despise more than "political correctness", and I will offend at any and every opportunity. Fortunately for all they are few as I only visit on rare occasions....it's been about 2 years since I've been in a real "left coast" city.

I immediately contrived the prank of releasing hundreds of roosters into the parks and streets of this city in the wee hours of the morning.......... I can just imagine the public outrage, the crisis it would cause......... How to do it and where to get the roosters? It would be well worth doing as long as one didn't get caught.......... I can only imagine the penalty!

Sexless animals and pathetic conformist humans........

To quote a Jackson Browne song....There's a world of illusion and fantasy in the place where the real world belongs

From the song Farther On.

H.W.

 

[b-boy]

Did you know that a feral hen makes $.70 for every dollar a feral rooster makes? That's sexism, my friend!

 

[fastengine]

If looking for roosters, look at craigs list in the spring or hatchery ads that specialize in laying hens.
I raise chickens and incubate and hatch eggs for laying hens. I am one of those hobby breeders that get 3 roosters to 1 hen. Therefore I eat alot of chicken.
Believe me, when the local chicken people found out that I use roosters for food, they were beating my door down trying to give me their excess roosters so they didn't have to deal with them.
Roosters here are easy to get and impossible to get rid of. You don't need to look to hard to get roos for your stand against political correctness. The internet is your best friend.

 

[MindenMan]

So what is the problem with undomesticated cocks? Undomesticated cocks were the backbone of this country in it's early days. If it wasn't for all the foreign undomesticated cocks that came by ship, there would have been no need for hens. Wait, did I miss the boat here?

 

[rlmiller10]

You only need to sneak in a few roosters. If they are really feral hens they will soon be raising broods and once that starts they will be producing their own roosters.

And I raise my glass to you in salute. Poking the eye of PC is one of my favorite games as well.

 

[Homercidal]

Some people are just uptight because wild cocks have been known to wake you up early in the morning.

 

[vanishingpint]

Homer you might want to lock your doors at night,or at least sleep on your back.

 

[Owly055]

If looking for roosters, look at craigs list in the spring or hatchery ads that specialize in laying hens.
I raise chickens and incubate and hatch eggs for laying hens. I am one of those hobby breeders that get 3 roosters to 1 hen. Therefore I eat alot of chicken.
Believe me, when the local chicken people found out that I use roosters for food, they were beating my door down trying to give me their excess roosters so they didn't have to deal with them.
Roosters here are easy to get and impossible to get rid of. You don't need to look to hard to get roos for your stand against political correctness. The internet is your best friend.

Thanks for the great advice........ I will follow your advice and the "left coast" city in question will soon be awash in wild roosters........ Soon they will have trained dogs herding roosters to designated refuges outside city limits so the drones can sleep in peace! Perhaps both hens and roosters need to be released ............ for obvious reasons. This is the first good reason I've found for raising chickens. I can see myself backing up to a public park with as pickup with load of chickens in the middle of the night and kicking them all out........ How to do it quickly, efficiently, and quietly is the real challenge....... And of course there is the matter of carrying live chickens discretely....

H.W.

 

[jhoneycutt]

If you do you better post pictures.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Sounds to me like serial rape. Unleashing wild cockerel all over town and cramming it down people's....
Never mind.

 

[flars]

I thought this thread was going to be about a high ABV red ale.

 

[Zuljin]

Urban wildlife is great and we should have more of it.

In my city, we've squirrel, rabbit, skunk and opossum. Earth snakes, geckos, anoles and toads. All sorts of birds, including several red tail hawks. It's good we have the hawks because we have the meeces and some outright rats.

There were bobcats roaming about where I used to live, and an alligator in the bayou was not unheard of. Nobody got ate.

Roosters and hens? Free range food? Yes, please.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Forgive me, I'm just a city boy after all and not versed in such important matters as chickens... but isnt the difference between a ownerless rooster and an ownerless hen the potential for grievous bodily harm?

 

[Homercidal]

Forgive me, I'm just a city boy after all and not versed in such important matters as chickens... but isnt the difference between a ownerless rooster and an ownerless hen the potential for grievous bodily harm?

In fact, an ownerless hen by herself really does nothing more harmful than laying sterile eggs all over the place, while an ownerless cock can be a public nuisance simply through it's tendency to crow loudly, especially, but not limited to, the wee morning hours.

An ownerless cock, when combined with an ownerless hen, can create many, many more ownerless cocks and hens, multiplying the cock problem exponentially.

Thankfully, the problem is easy to solve as cocks and hens are not very hard to manage, and any place with feral cats, coyotes, hawks, bobcats, cougars, and hungry psychopaths will self-regulate the population on it's own.

I'm getting hungry. Think I'll pick up some fried chicken on the way home.

 

[Owly055]

Forgive me, I'm just a city boy after all and not versed in such important matters as chickens... but isnt the difference between a ownerless rooster and an ownerless hen the potential for grievous bodily harm?

I've never heard of someone being harmed by a chicken of any description.... Geese will chase you and bite you...... Chickens don't attack humans to my knowledge.... And I've been around them all my life....... each other is a different thing. Cocks are sometimes bred to fight. (each other). Probably one of the most dangerous male domestic animals other than the male human is the stud Llama..... The stud horse comes in close, and a few breeds of bulls can be very aggressive but not many and those that are are bred for it. Buffalo bulls can also be extremely dangerous........ None are a problem if you know how to work with them.

H.W.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Again, dont know too much about chickens other than how to cook them. I got chased around by an angry rooster as a kid on a farm once... hens all just kind of did chicken stuff and left me alone.

What I gotta ask is... what do you care? Don't like the west coast or cities... dont live there...

I grew up in the country and I honestly hated it with every fiber of my being... but I didnt write an article about how stupid it is.

"Just saying"

 

[Hamaki]

I've seen plenty of PC hivemind on the right as well as the left. Both equally foul, IMO.

Roosters can hurt you with their spurs, especially kids. Both sexes will peck eyes and can blind you. Not common but it happens. As for broad statements whether other domestic animals are safe or not, take it with a lot of salt. I've known of people hurt or killed by "safe" livestock.

 

[Homercidal]

Any chicken can be dangerous, but it's not common. They can and sometimes do peck and as has been stated, cocks have spurs that they sometimes use to fight with. Once as a kid I was terrorized by a rooster who was following me around evilly. I'd heard stories from my friend who raised chickens that they can stab you with their spurs. I now have a mind to think that he was just following me around HUNGRILY, not evilly.

And I'm all for free-roaming food. Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where you can just stop your car and pick up a fresh chicken scratching along the side of the road, and take it home and roast it?? We'd only have to get people to plant Rosemary, Sage, and Thyme too!

 

[flars]

I was attacked by a Rhode Island Red rooster when about four years old. Few cuts on my legs and face. We had rooster for supper.

 

[Pappers_]

What I gotta ask is... what do you care? Don't like the west coast or cities... dont live there...

I grew up in the country and I honestly hated it with every fiber of my being... but I didnt write an article about how stupid it is.

"Just saying"

I grew up in the wilds of rural Nebraska and have lived in Chicago for most of my adult life and I agree with you, @CreamyGoodness . I don't understand the need to insult people who live in cities. It would be like me writing a post about those ignorant hicks who live out in the country. It doesn't make sense and its just rude.

Back to the topic, though - I love chickens and those who raise them in urban areas - we have a neighbor with a chicken coop. Wouldn't be so happy with them if they had a rooster, though.

 

[Homercidal]

I grew up in the wilds of rural Nebraska and have lived in Chicago for most of my adult life and I agree with you, CG. I don't understand the need to insult people who live in cities. It would be like me writing a post about those ignorant hicks who live out in the country. It doesn't make sense and its just rude.

Back to the topic, though - I love chickens and those who raise them in urban areas - we have a neighbor with a chicken coop. Wouldn't be so happy with them if they had a rooster, though.

I don't think the rant was necessarily directed at all cities, or really cities in general, just at the attitudes that certain people in certain cities seem to have.

Frankly, I am thrilled we've moved past the point of the OP and into some really creative thinking: Drive-through chicken farms!

 

[Pappers_]

If you take a good look at a chicken, @Homercidal , you'll note a remarkable resemblence to dinosaur raptors. Birds in general are now considered evolutionary descendants of dinos. Look a chicken in the eye and you can tell - they're thinking about what would happen to you if you weren't a weird giant ape ten times their size.

 

[Homercidal]

If you take a good look at a chicken, @Homercidal , you'll note a remarkable resemblence to dinosaur raptors. Birds in general are now considered evolutionary descendants of dinos. Look a chicken in the eye and you can tell - they're thinking about what would happen to you if you weren't a weird giant ape ten times their size.

My God, you're right!

Funny, how I never look at a live chicken and think, "You look delicious!" That comes after cleaning and cooking...

Having grown up around a family who kept chickens, I learned they will eat anything that moves that they can get their beaks around, or tear apart.

And I learned that some hens don't want you to take their eggs from underneath them.

And I learned that fresh farm eggs can be safely stored on the window ledge for days without worry of salmonella or anything else that can harm you.

 

[Hamaki]

I enjoy eating chicken if it was raised right (fear God, do your chores, respect your elders) and slaughtered at 6 - 8 weeks. The feral chickens I've seen are tough, rangy birds with little meat on them. Maybe they're unfit to eat because they're west coast birds?

 

[Owly055]

Older chickens are generally so tough you can stew them for weeks and they still aren't fit to eat. Try buying a "stewing hen" sometime. They are good for making chicken broth, and the meat makes good dog food.

There's a book out there on the marvels of apple cider vinegar where the author relates wonderful results feeding tough old chickens on grain mixed with apple cider vinegar for awhile then slaughtering them and they were supposedly tender and delicious. I suspect that beer vinegar would be just as good. The whole story seems a bit unbelievable, but I've often thought about trying it. I see no reason apple cider vinegar would be better than any other kind of vinegar........

H.W.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

My God, you're right!

Funny, how I never look at a live chicken and think, "You look delicious!" That comes after cleaning and cooking...

Having grown up around a family who kept chickens, I learned they will eat anything that moves that they can get their beaks around, or tear apart.

And I learned that some hens don't want you to take their eggs from underneath them.

...

I see the local geese when I'm out running and wonder how they don't end up on more dinner plates. If it wasn't for their penchant for eating on golfcourses with all the attendant pesticides and chemicals I'd consider gittin me a 2x4 and goin out at dusk ... talkin bout "heeeere goose - honk, honk, heeere ..."

When I was a kid we lived in a village with Birmingham (Michigan) on one side and Bloomfield Hills on another ... and yet we kept chickens for about 10 or so years.
It was also legal in our village to keep horses. In fact through the woods out our back yard, within about 1000 yards (as the crow flies) there was a braying donkey, and someone who kept a goat and a Llama and two or three families with horses. (English riders all)
And this was in an extremely pricey area.

One year we inadvertently got a rooster with our batch of chicks.
He was loud.
He was an excellent frying bird.
The racket with our chickens and rooster, and that donkey through the woods, led our neighbor to complain that he'd worked all his life to get *away* from those sounds. We had him over for dinner when we cooked the rooster.

I think our having chickens was strongly influenced by having both sets of grandparents from the old country. They really loved that we had our own poultry and garden produce.

 

[vanishingpint]

Swmbo nagged at me for ten years to get chickens.Having grown up on a large farm I told her no they are too messy and too much work.When our supplier got rid of his chickens I said ok.I can't stand grocery store eggs and guess what they are fun as heck.Found a small animal carcass in the pen awhile back.I couldn't quite identify it but could been a chipmunk once.Like pigs they are total omnivores except more predatory.

 

[Homercidal]

I'd have them if our plot were larger and we lived outside of town. We are too close to other neighbors to keep them realistically. I've looked into it for a friend who moved out of town last year.

My friend's family kept them in a small barn. They had a possum or two living under the coop. They borrowed a leg trap and took that possum out with a .22 when it got snagged.

And of course seeing as they had little money and the dad came from Kentucky, we ate the possum...

 

[vanishingpint]

Never ate possum.We live about 1 1/2 miles out of town on 8 acres.Saw a coyote amble through the back yard this morning . Swmbo had never got to see one so she thought that was neat.Me too except I built my hen house like a fortress that can be totally closed up at night and that's why.

 

[Hamaki]

We had problems years ago with skunks & raccoons killing chickens. Raccoons are surprisingly strong and our shelter was no match for them. We had a fox problem two years ago but we got him. A lion killed one of our goats about 10 or 15 years back. Since then we haven't had lion problems but our neighbors (with hundreds of goats) have lost several. They killed one lion.

I don't mind that much the wildlife losses but there's a rental house nearby that seems to have new tenants every time I turn around and every new family has dogs that they won't keep up. We lost some chickens a couple of years back to a couple of Chihuahua crosses. The next family had bigger dogs that caught one of the neighbors' goats with her head tangled in the fence and ate her face.

 

[DrunkleJon]

We had problems years ago with skunks & raccoons killing chickens. Raccoons are surprisingly strong and our shelter was no match for them. We had a fox problem two years ago but we got him. A lion killed one of our goats about 10 or 15 years back. Since then we haven't had lion problems but our neighbors (with hundreds of goats) have lost several. They killed one lion.

I don't mind that much the wildlife losses but there's a rental house nearby that seems to have new tenants every time I turn around and every new family has dogs that they won't keep up. We lost some chickens a couple of years back to a couple of Chihuahua crosses. The next family had bigger dogs that caught one of the neighbors' goats with her head tangled in the fence and ate her face.

That is the most frightening post I have ever read. Feral Chihuahuas? The 'domesticated' ones are vicious mean little yappy enough jerks as it is. I cannot imagine what a feral one would be like. And lions? No thanks. I will keep my annoying neighbor and the foxes, skunks and occasional transients that compose of most of the wildlife around here.

 

[Hamaki]

Yeah, the little yappy dogs were easy to catch & haul off to the pound even after they killed three chickens and mangled a fourth that died later. I left the three dead chickens on their owner's porch with a note saying the dogs were at the pound All I had handy to write on was the back of a cash register receipt so no room to explain how their dogs killed the chickens and that I left the chickens as proof and for the dog owners to deal with disposal. I thought that pert was pretty obvious, especially since I'd brought their dogs home to them a couple of times before and talked to them about the dogs chasing the chickens. Later a sheriff's deputy got hold of me because the neighbor reported it as some kind of threat or maybe a curse. We both thought that was kinda funny. Just to avoid confusion, however, I now shoot at dogs that worry my livestock. Talking to the owners doesn't do any good.

 

[jhoneycutt]

Yeah, the little yappy dogs were easy to catch & haul off to the pound even after they killed three chickens and mangled a fourth that died later. I left the three dead chickens on their owner's porch with a note saying the dogs were at the pound All I had handy to write on was the back of a cash register receipt so no room to explain how their dogs killed the chickens and that I left the chickens as proof and for the dog owners to deal with disposal. I thought that pert was pretty obvious, especially since I'd brought their dogs home to them a couple of times before and talked to them about the dogs chasing the chickens. Later a sheriff's deputy got hold of me because the neighbor reported it as some kind of threat or maybe a curse. We both thought that was kinda funny. Just to avoid confusion, however, I now shoot at dogs that worry my livestock. Talking to the owners doesn't do any good.

When we first moves to where we are now a couple neighborhood dogs killed my kids pet rabbits. Now I kill neighborhood dogs that mess around my pets. I tried once to fill the owners in on what was happening. They didn't listen, now I have no problems.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Yeaaaaahhhh.... sign me up for living in the country again

 

[Hamaki]

Unpleasant as it may sound, I still prefer it over my experiences in the city.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

The title of this thread, "The Feral Rooster" might make a good name for a restaurant. That or a pub ... one could hang a nice painted sign with wrought iron mountings out front like British pubs do with a rooster painted on it.
"The Feral Rooster" sounds better than "The Wild Cock" anyway.
Okay, I suppose considering the literal meaning of the word "feral" it would suggest the pub name should be "Cock's Gone Wild".
With a name like that it could be one of those women's strip clubs where bachelorette parties are held ...
Er ... uh ...
I digress.

 

[Owly055]

When we first moves to where we are now a couple neighborhood dogs killed my kids pet rabbits. Now I kill neighborhood dogs that mess around my pets. I tried once to fill the owners in on what was happening. They didn't listen, now I have no problems.

Dog owners never believe that their dogs are getting into mischief. The dog is on the front porch when they leave home and on the front porch when they get home, or in the yard when they go to bed and in the yard when they get up in the AM. Dogs aren't stupid! I know of a couple of instances of dogs killing livestock as far as 15 miles from home and the owner not believing it was their dog until the dog was brought home with a bullet. In one case the owner insisted that the dog must have been shot at home.... though the sheriff had done the shooting!

As a teen, I killed a German Sheppard in the front yard of the house where it lived.... with my bare hands!! The dog had attacked me on the sidewalk, and as it was cold weather I was wearing one of those heavy wool naval coats called a P-coat. When the dog leaped at my face, I put my left arm up so it grabbed my arm instead of my face or throat. My right arm went around behind it's neck, and I went forward, throwing the dog down on it's back with me on top. I rolled around on top of the dog, and managed to bring it's head back far enough to snap it's spine and kill it. The dog attacked the wrong kid!! I had extremely powerful arms as a teen from climbing...I was not a big kid.... only about 5' tall at the time, and about 120 pounds, and it was a relatively young but large German Sheppard....... But I was a all muscle, fueled by rage and adrenaline. When that dog took my arm, I was NOT going to let it get away alive no matter what.

The owner saw part of the tussle.... on his front lawn, and called the cops reporting that I had attacked his dog!!! I'd done nothing more than walk down the sidewalk, nothing to provoke the dog that had come charging at me. His view was that I was "trespassing"..... Apparently I should have stayed on the sidewalk..... but the lawn looked like a lot safer place to land. Needless to say the cops believed my side of the story.... the dog after all was loose, not in a fenced yard in a town with a leash law, and my arm was severely lacerated and required quite a few stitches. He was forced to pay my medical bills as well as the cost of having the postmortem on the dog to test for rabies. He persisted in his idea that I had somehow provoked his dog who would never have behaved that way otherwise.
I never heard anything even remotely like an apology or an admission of any fault or wrongdoing....In his twisted perception of things I was entirely at fault and he and his dog had suffered an injustice. It was a lesson in human nature and stubborn stupidity. I didn't live in that neighborhood, and in fact don't recall ever having walked down that street before. I lived many miles from where I went to school, and had taken a city bus that let me out several miles from home but avoided waiting for a later bus. Normally I rode a bicycle but didn't for some reason that day.... probably because it was cold wet and miserable.

I like most dogs and get along well with nearly all of them, but I have a very low tolerance for unacceptable and uncontrolled behavior. People always say "it's not the dog's fault".... meaning the owner is to blame, but I can't shoot the owner much as I would like to sometimes ;-)...... I've killed a number of dogs over the years in the act of attacking livestock, and one pit bull that had grabbed another dog by the neck.... a 22 round to the head does wonders for the disposition of a pit bull
H.W.

 

[MaddBaggins]

Living in the "city that still thinks it's a town", we have lots of urban wildlife. Coyotes and rabbits are abundant throughout Tucson as well as raccoons, bobcats, and skunks not to mention the abundance of hawks and owls and large crows. Even the occasional bear and cougar will wander into the city.

I keep hens, but no rooster (per city ord). I built my coop like Ft Knox knowing full well that my neighborhood is full of coyotes. We have a couple large washes (those are river/creek beds to you wetlanders) near us and many smaller ones. The coyotes use them as highways around the city. I've stepped outside many an early morning to see a coyote in my yard looking through wire at my birds. I keep a pellet gun on the porch, but those mangy floccers are quick and will hop my 5+' wall in a single bound. They don't come around in the day, probably because my dog is on patrol then. She keeps an eye on the birds and enjoys herding them around the yard when I let them out.
Chickens are fun to keep and are definitely predators in their own right. They do look and move a lot like the Velociraptors from Jurassic Park.