The Cock Fight

Ok. Forgive me for saying so, but roosters are dicks. At least ours is. His name is the Scarlet Pimpernel, Pimp for short, and unlike Howl, my sister and brother-in-law's rooster, I think he suffers from small spur syndrome. We thought for awhile that maybe he fancied the gentlemen rather than the ladies because he didn't seem particularly interested in our hens so we started calling him Scarlet. He didn't particularly appreciate that nickname but we didn't care. The Hens were also under impressed with him and were pecking on pretty thin ice because they were not producing their daily quota of eggs. Craig and Brendan were talking about killing one in sight of the others as a “get after it ladies” pep talk when the Pimp cornered me.

I was walking out of the garden when I saw him. “Hey you,” he said in his very machoest of rooster voices, puffing out his neck feathers. I stopped and regarded him for a second. “ That's very impressive Pimp,” I observed, nodding approvingly at his display and walking past him at a slight distance. “Hey!” squawked Pimp, offended that I had turned my back on him. “I was talkin' to you!” I sighed and turned just in time to see him flap towards me, talons extended. I raised my steel-toed boot at the last second but he still caught my knee with his spur. “You. Jerk!” I cried in outrage, turning to meet him head on. “What was that for?!” He didn't stop to explain. My knee and boot were still raised and he clearly saw it as a threat so we got into a old fashioned cock fight right then and there which basically consisted of me standing still with my boot raised while Pimp repeatedly jumped and tried to kill it. When he got tuckered out I would rush at him making lots of noise and telling him that yes, he'd better run, at which point he would stop, rally, turn and we'd go a few more rounds.

Now, I am just assuming that the man finally got fed up with the name calling and the threats on his ladies' lives and he decided he had to do something about it. I suppose he can't be blamed. I will tell you one thing, those hens were suddenly very impressed and two days later we found no fewer than 14 eggs next to the shed. Evidently he fancies the ladies after all.