Country Living – Dirty rotten rooster

Don’t be silly. Of course, I was aware that it was slightly abnormal behaviour to suffer a panic attack upon the realisation that I was one egg short to complete my pav. Laugh you may. However, how many of you have a nasty, vicious and stalking rogue rooster in your hen house? This rooster was a mighty handsome leghorn. I was of the opinion that if I was to be woken early in the morning, then it may as well be from a damn good looking rooster, and I presumed my hens felt the same. We reared this fella from a chick in the hope that he would be kind. But, before Christmas, this jerk decided to get nasty and must have decided that the hens were there for him and not me.

He attacked me and my two youngest on a couple of occasions and now we feared him. I asked my husband to get rid of him, but he just laughed at me and said, “Pull yourself together woman, it’s only a bloody rooster.” I mean, here I was thinking the hubby was going to get into “wife protection mode”, don camouflage, do a commando-type roll and blow its head off … and all I got was laughter!

What he did not understand was that this cocky cockerel was actually a killer and, unfortunately, he had now become my problem. Although I was petrified of him, I can assure all of you that as far as my legs stood upright, there was no way this disrespectful rooster was going to get between me and my four-egg pav.

I knew we had guns in the gun safe, but I wasn’t privy to the combination, so I needed a different weapon. Broom, check; full leather boots, check; courage, check; and off I marched. I didn’t even make it to the hen house when this slime ball started lurching towards me with his big fat neck feathers all puffed out. Eeww yuck, he made me feel sick.

So, there I was, violently waving the broom and kicking my legs like a madwoman when he had another crack at me. But then, yippee, connect! I got him with the broom. He stopped, composed himself (as if to say ‘you’ll keep’) and retreated. I was so wound up, I proceeded to give him a big lecture at the top of my voice in the middle of the paddock. It went something like this: “Now listen here, I am incredibly aware that I am a duck shooter’s worst nightmare. However, I am also intelligent enough to realise I will have your full respect once I place a double-barrelled shotgun next to that wobbly red thing on your head.”

So, with that, I got my eggs, finished my pav, had a cup of coffee and thought that was just way too much drama to be happening before 10am. A couple of weeks later my girlfriend, who is something of a chook whisperer, came over with a couple of beers and we hatched an evil plan to get him gone.

We waited until the sun went down and, like a pack of burglars, crept to the chook house. In she went and grabbed the bugger from the roost whilst he was sleeping. It was honestly one of the funniest things I have ever seen, but my girlfriend had saved me from him. Funnily enough, as it turns out she knew of a woman who was looking for such a rooster. Why on earth? But God bless her, and good riddance to that cock-a-doodle-do, I say.

Julie Cotton