A Rooster in the City
A look inside toxic relationships.
Pullets
Not so long ago I bought three young pullets to lay eggs in our small household in the suburban area, in close proximity to the central city.
For those who don’t know much about chickens, pullets are almost grown-up chicks who are very close to laying eggs. With younger pullets, it’s often difficult to distinguish young roosters from chickens, so people mostly rely on the breeder to do that before offering pullets for sale.
I asked the breeder if he was sure that all the three pullets were indeed chickens. The breeder was a tall handsome well-dressed middle-aged male with a self-confident stance. He explained to me in a slightly condescending manner that of course he was sure that all the three pullets were chickens. But I could always return them if they turned out to be roosters. And he laughed with an almost intangible hint of superiority over a fussy ignorant city dweller.
At that moment I should have sensed that something was off. I’m old enough to know that when I hear ‘Don’t worry, everything is under control’ which is usually said with a touch of superiority, this is exactly the moment when I should start worrying. In my experience, men are more often than women guilty of such behavior. Is this called ‘mansplaining’ in the modern world?
We brought the pullets home. They were quite young, probably a couple of months before the point of lay. We wanted them young to allow them to settle down in their new home before they started laying. The pullets were scared and rather quiet in the first couple of weeks. Kids were exuberant. My husband and I were anticipating some fresh eggs in the near future.
The Rooster
It’s probably very obvious where this story goes. One of the pullets turned out to be a rooster.
In any abusive narcissistic relationship, the abuse starts with little things that slowly grow over time, or so YouTube says. Our young rooster seemed to have a natural talent to behave like a seasoned abuser.
He didn’t come out as a rooster immediately from day one or even week three. The first signs were rare and subtle: an occasional attempt at crowing in the middle of the day, which didn’t really sound like crowing. Some attempts to dominate the other two pullets now and then, but nothing that a dominant chicken wouldn’t do. Maybe a bit too forward with humans, but dominant chickens are often braver around humans than the rest of the flock. Yes, we kept chickens in the past and I knew a thing or two about them.
So, my doubts came and went, or rather — I brushed them off. Wasn’t I told that things were under control? Don’t we all, or at least many of us, want to believe that someone out there knows better? I went into a blissful denial.
Denial
In the meantime, the young rooster was becoming stronger, more dominant, more vocal, more of everything. He was showing the pullets the way to the grassy lawn, pecking them back in order if they disobeyed. He inserted himself in front of the pullets, if humans approached. He also seemed to be smarter with the automatic feeder.
Yet I preferred to stay in denial.
Denial, in fact, is such a comfortable and peaceful state of mind. Why worry unless reality starts throwing rocks at me? Denial is rather contagious, too.
My family blindly believed me that the young rooster must be a dominant chicken. I even found YouTube evidence that some chickens can now and then attempt to crow to show dominance. My family readily nodded and went back to their smartphones, with quiet sighs of relief that they didn’t have to do anything about the problem.
The problem didn’t walk away though. One morning — thankfully it was winter so mornings started really late — the rooster managed an early morning crow, a very shy crow I must say. It was Okay because we live near a busy noisy road and our neighbors’ houses are quite removed from where the chickens are kept — a nice privilege of living in New Zealand where city dwellers can still get a touch of the farming lifestyle. That said, it’s illegal to keep roosters in the city.
I was slowly but progressively becoming worried. The smoke of denial around me started fading away. I realized that there would be more of the early morning crows coming.
I started talking with the rooster when I came to check out the pullets. It was a clumsy attempt to hypnotize the rooster back into my desired reality of having three happy chickens laying eggs for us. The rooster stood his ground though — he was becoming more and more difficult to manage, more dominant with the chickens and more vocal by the day. He even started growing a beautiful long tail. He was becoming a handsome bird, and he knew it — it was very obvious from his proud stance.
Reality
My mind started developing a plan for getting rid of the rooster with minimal financial and emotional loss. We didn’t want to drive all the way back to the breeder who lived in a remote rural area. We wanted to sell the rooster and do so quickly. But no one would want a rooster of a mixed breed for breeding, so his fate was very predictable. And we got attached to the rooster.
My mind was very slow, because it’s usually reluctant to deal with reality when reality refuses to bend to my will. I think, in my mind, there was still a glimpse of hope that things would somehow work out on their own. A theme of my life.
Until one evening the rooster decided that it was safer to sleep high in the massive trees just above the chicken coop, so he led the way, and all the three pullets were nicely positioned about three or four meters above the ground. The beauty of no-predator city life in New Zealand where I didn’t have to cover the chicken run with a protective net.
So, the following morning I stood underneath the tall tree looking up at the pullets nested high above me, while the rooster was joyfully announcing the birth of a new day. As my family was hysterically laughing (I couldn’t hear them, but I could see their faces in the lounge window), I stood there picturing dark and grim death sentences for the rooster — with the civilized part of my mind giving way to the darker reptile side. That switch was rather quick which was frightening in itself. Who said that city dwellers are too civilized to catch and cook live prey?
For those who don’t have a reptile side in them, here’s a brief clarification. Reptile rage is ice cold to touch; it appears in the abdomen area and then rises up to the chest and then higher up until it invades the brain. The brain then becomes a spectator to the raging show, observing but not interfering. Not to be confused with impulsive hot rage which clouds and shuts down the brain completely.
The rooster must have sensed my reptile side arising because he flew a couple of meters higher and started crowing with full force. Not only he sat there — safely — in the branches, now some six meters above me. He wouldn’t let the other two pullets come down either; it was incredible to observe that they looked at him for permission to fly down.
I was sizing the tree up and down; despite my age I thought I was fit enough to climb up and do some cruel things to the rooster. Of course, I held off my reptile side. Mainly because the little remaining common sense told me that roosters had the natural advantage of flying. I also imagined for a moment my unsuspecting neighbors’ horror when they saw me pulling the rooster down the tree, in a rage tantrum, with noise and screams. I was sure the news would spread across our small city in a matter of days.
The End
To cut the long story short, we sold the rooster within a week. We were a bit sad but also relieved, with peace returning to our backyard, quiet mornings, undisturbed pullets, happy neighbors and no danger of the local city council workers knocking on my door.
As the days went by, my mind kept coming up with all sorts of reasons why roosters were useless. The rooster didn’t lay eggs, he was noisy and loud, he stressed the pullets, and showed too much initiative. With no predators in sight, his protection and vigilance weren’t required. Yes, he was a handsome bird, but I wouldn’t keep anyone in my life just for their looks. Who would?
I keep saying these things to myself every time I have to lead our two chickens to a new grass area, show them what to do with unfamiliar food, or how to behave around the neighbor’s cat. If the rooster was still around, he would have taken the lead and shown them.
Deep sigh.
