Falsely Accused

Another chicken story…..

Shloppy Rooster spends most of his time milling around in front of our house. Now that the weather’s hot, you can often hear him under the front porch. It’s particularly funny to hear him crow under your feet.

He doesn’t have much contact with the big chicken flock that live in the hen house. All the bantams sleep together in a dog crate in the goat barn, and they hardly ever wander into the paddock that the big hens call home.

One day, I came across Shloppy and Rock-n-Roll (aka Bossy) having a fight. Some would think it would be easy to catch a chicken when it’s concentrating on beating up another chicken. You probably know that it’s not easy. They flapped and kicked and tumbled away from me like a bouncing ball made out of chickens.

They were fine.

The next day, I was out for most of the day. In the evening, Shloppy limped by the front of the house. He had blood on his face and back and his wattles had been ripped. He let me pick him up and put ointment on his sores. I put him to bed. He looked at me sweetly and cockle-doodle-doo-ed, “you should see the other guy”. Then he winked at me with his sly little chicken face.

I found Rock-n-Roll and put him in a dog crate for the night, to give me time to figure out what to do with him. He had not one scratch on him. He’s so big. And that he just let me scoop him up and put him in a crate made me sad. He trusts me. He’s just being a rooster. A great big mean rooster.

In the morning I went to do the animal chores. In the hen house I found Prince. Prince, the biggest rooster of them all. The one I had thought nothing about because he was the king – why would he bother having a squabbly chicken fight with the common folk?

He was such a sight! He looked worse than Shloppy!

Poor Rock-n-Roll had nothing to do with it! He sat patiently in his dog crate until I opened the door and he walked out again, wondering why I had done that and happy that it was over.

Prince recovered just fine, although his ego might not ever be the same again.

Shloppy proudly cockly-doodly-ed when he came out in the morning, “I told you, you should have seen the other guy”!

Man, what a tiny spunky tiny tiny chicken that Shloppy guy is, you know?