A rant about a rooster and an animal control officer.

This has been an aggravating day. The aggravation started when I went let my chickens out of their coop. I was not fully caffeinated yet and what happened really confused my addled brain. Suddenly there was a lot of flapping of wings as a bundle of russet red feathers was moving so fast I could not tell what I was looking at. It was my buttercup rooster fighting another much bigger rooster.  My first thought was that my missing golden polish rooster, Buster, had somehow returned after all these months. My next thought was that if I didn't do something quick Buttercup was going to be killed. I got in the fray and somehow managed to get Buttercup who was by now bleeding from his comb. He was struggling in my arms, getting blood on me, all the girls were loose and the other rooster is 'growling' at me.  I did not want my girls near him in case he had a disease but could not get them back in while trying to hold my rooster.

Here is my Buttercup

I went in the house to get my Dad who was in his room trying to get ready to go to a funeral. He could not hear me call so I went upstairs while holding on holding on to the bleeding rooster. His nice crown shaped comb seen here in better days was what was bleeding.

Together Dad and I managed to get all but one of the girls back in the coop. I put Buttercup in with them and went in the house to call the nearest neighbor who owns chickens. He came up to look but the rooster was not his. He said that people often drop off unwanted chickens at his place. Why do people figure that if you have a farm you will take care of the animals they don't want?

This neighbor suggested that I call another farmer in town who employs people from Mexico. He said that the Mexicans like the roosters for coq-Au-Vin!! Well, I tried that but got no answers so I called our local police department. The woman who answered the phone said that she would contact the animal control officer(ACO) and then call me back. When she called back she said that the ACO had an appointment that morning but would call me in the afternoon.  She also told me that they had another call about dropped off roosters on the other side of town on Saturday. So I waited...and waited... I was not pleased about waiting because Buttercup is understandably upset, the girls really want to get out to free range, and the 'stray' rooster is 'bothering' the one girl that I still can not get in the coop.  So I finally called the woman at the police station again at about 2:30. This time she told me that the ACO had to take his mother to the doctor and maybe he was not back yet. So I waited...and waited...

Now I was trying to be patient but as I was waiting I was remembering that during the summer I had placed similar calls about a pair of loose dogs that had cornered me on the public lands near our home. I was told then that the ACO would be in touch with me the next day. I never heard from him. So I called a third time at 5:00...and this time he called me back. His first question was did I have the rooster contained. I thought that was HIS job. He then went though a litany about why he could not come today to help me. First it was "I have a vir...the flu. I don't have anyone who can come tonight." We don't usually deal with roosters. I don't have equipment to catch one...they are hard to catch unless they are roosting...they roost at night...that is the best time to catch them. I was mad and not able to respond. To my silence he said he would try to come tomorrow if the rooster was still around!
Well I was so mad when I got off the phone I stormed out and captured the stupid rooster on my own. He is now in a cage. I want to deliver him to the ACO's home..grrrrr. 

Here is the interloper. A mangy looking Golden Laced Wyandotte, which is a rare breed.

Now that I have vented I guess I need to go figure our what I really am going to do with him.