Now I am going to run the risk of sounding completely naive and daft here, but the thought that roosters did anything other than crow never really crossed my mind (I must have thought baby chickens just dropped out of the sky or something!). That was until that fateful day when I was out in my veggie garden raking leaves when I witnessed what surely would be described as a criminal offense in any civilised society. Hearing an awful ruckus in the chook yard I looked up to view my rooster violently trying to (how can I say this in a “G” rated format?) copulate with one of my girls. Feathers were flying along with deafening cackles and his razor sharp talons in full view. So incensed at his terrible behaviour I flew into the chook yard, rake in hand, adorned with oversized gumboots, and chased that little bugger within an inch of my life! Over the slippery grass and into the adjoining paddock I went, must have looked completely ridiculous and it was an epic fail of a mission anyway.
So I slept on his behaviour that night and woke up thinking I had the perfect solution to his wicked copulating ways. I rang the vets in Wellsford the next day so excited about my steely resolve and asked ‘is it possible to de-sex a rooster without losing his ability to crow?’ Funnily enough there was a lengthy, polite and awkward silence on the end of the phone followed by a short ‘no, not really Mrs Cotton!’ ‘Dammit’ it, I thought, there goes that brilliant idea.