Background: Originally published August 16, 2006. Our entire group of chickens disappeared last December when I was in the hospital....because no one was around to open the door to the chicken coop in the morning and to close it again at night. Since then, we were able to receive some pullets to replace the birds, but unfortunately the hatchery sneaked in a couple of roosters in the batch. It appears that roosters will never go away!
Over the years, I've sometimes thought there was an invisible sign posted on my family's yard that said "unwanted animal orphanage." Stray cats would appear on our doorstep. Passing motorists must have had the false impression that Cypress street was a pet-friendly neighborhood.
The last two next-door neighbors who moved out left their cats behind. The last neighbor who moved out last summer put a bright pink collar on their cat, just days before they left town. It was almost as if they put on the collar for our benefit, as if it say, "Here's our cat. Be sure and take good care of her for us." I emphasize the word her, because the cat had several litters of kittens before we able to catch the feline and take her to the animal shelter.
Then there was the incident years ago, when a loose goose was found along Oak street on the eastern edge of the Oakland city limits. The Oakland police chief at the time told a concerned citizen the goose belonged to Lucille Muirhead across town....even though there were several families who had waterfowl that lived much closer. For whatever reason, whenever an animal was found, the finger seemed to point our direction even though we weren't missing an animal.
However, I don't fault anyone for that mistaken impression. Charles "Shorty" McMahon raised animals on seven acres of property behind our family's house. When Shorty passed away in the 1970s, my purchased his barn and small corral that adjoined our property. We didn't put cows and pigs on the property as Shorty once did. However, at different times we kept a BLM Mustang and several goats on the property to keep the brush cleared away. Livestock and poultry on the property pre-dated my family moving to the site in 1966.
The latest saga began in mid-July when a rooster and hen appeared in the Cypress street neighborhood. I thought some neighbors across the street had obtained the chickens, because I first heard the rooster crow across the street one morning. We were in for a surprise when Oakland city hall called my mother, telling her two neighbors had called to complain about our rooster! (Someone at city hall must have heard the "loose goose" story from years ago and assumed that we also had a loose rooster.)
My mother politely told city hall that we didn't own any rooster, although we did have some bantam hens on occasion. We later learned that an Oakland resident several blocks away was the rooster's owner. After HIS neighbors complained about the crowing, he moved the birds elsewhere in town, letting someone else deal with the problem....including the rooster and hen that appeared in our neighborhood.
Several nights later near dusk, my mother heard the rooster squawking, running into our yard, limping, and with blood running out of its thigh. Although my family didn't care if the bird was alive or dead, we DID have a strong objection to any animal that was injured and in pain. I called the Oakland police department wanting to know if there was any recourse for us to help the disabled bird. Two Oakland police officers promptly responded to our property, shotgun available, to see if they could put the bird out of its misery. Unfortunately, it was dark by the time they arrived and they could not locate the rooster.
In the following days, my mother put feed and water out for the rooster, hoping to keep it in our yard. We thought if we could coax it in enough, we could catch it and move it out of the neighborhood. I had tried to catch it once, but it was much too wild. The rooster still had a limp, but apparently the neighbor who had shot it had not pierced any vital organs, and the rooster had kept his healthy appetite.
Unfortunately for the rooster, he also had a healthy appetite to wander. Every evening my mother would cringe as the rooster crossed the street and ventured on to other people's property. It was a race against time. Could my mother win over the rooster so that it could be caught and re-located? Or would the rooster meet his waterloo from the neighbor who had no patience with a dumb animal?
Our question was answered on Saturday, August 5th. My family was gone that day to visit my sister in Portland. Upon our return, a different neighbor asked us if we had seen the rooster. Since the rooster hadn't belonged to us in the first place, we said no. The neighbor told us that during our absence his family had heard a loud noise, which they soon discovered to be from a bow and arrow. (I didn't know that bows and arrows emitted a loud noise?) They yelled out to whomever was in the vicinity that they didn't want anyone shooting in the area, because they had children who were playing outside.
Having an idea as to what I might find, I looked up Cypress street and saw a bird lying I the ditch near the edge of my family's property line. When I inspected the scene closer, I saw an arrow had completed pierced the chest cavity of the calico-colored, bare-necked "turken" rooster that we had grown accustomed to.
I was mad. Not necessarily because the rooster was dead. But I was mad because some inconsiderate person had shot an animal on our property, and didn't have the decency to remove the carcass....instead leaving the dead bird for my distraught mother to contend with. I was also mad at how some people deal with conflict. Instead of one neighbor contacting another neighbor directly, to see if they can work together to solve a common problem, some people will instead call city hall to complain about some dumb animal doing what comes natural to it.
And yet, the same people who have a vendetta against a rooster's crow, will tolerate neighborhood noises that are much louder: dogs that bark incessantly through the night; firecrackers and gunfire going off well past midnight on July 4th and New Year's Eve; train whistles two blocks away that sound their horn multiple times in the middle of the night. People tolerate these noises that are emitted at a much higher decibel level, and tune them out over time. Why are roosters any different?
I've certainly been tempted over the years to complain over the years at various nuisances that I've heard nearby. But I never have. It would be so easy for me to pull out a 38-special and "eliminate" whatever was bothering me. But I have enough self-restraint and patience to avoid the temptation.
I haven't seen the free-roaming hen since the rooster met his demise. Now that she no longer has a companion to pal around with, she's probably off setting on a nest somewhere, getting ready to hatch another batch of roosters. My only advice to the hunters who weren't able to get a clear enough shot to kill a rooster the first time around: find out where the rooster sleeps at night. A simple flashlight shone in the bird's eyes will make it easy to pick up the bird in the dark. A flashlight is a more humane way to catch a rooster, unless target practicing in town was the objective in shooting the rooster in the first place?
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