Pierre: A Fancy Rooster
Without meaning to, I acquired a very fancy rooster. He ended up in a box of chicks from the feed store this spring and was supposed to be a little female easter egger – a kind of mutt chicken that lay pink and green eggs. Turns out, the chicken people at the feed store accidentally mixed the high dollar birds in with those that cost $2.50 a pop, and I got myself a purebred Ameracauna. Oopsie.
I was skeptical about this one from the get-go and, sure enough, eventually “she” sprouted wispy tail feathers, a large comb, and the tell-tale snooty, superior attitude that can only mean one thing in the chicken world: rooster. We are convinced that this guy speaks with a thick French accent, and, when none of us are looking, dons a beret and smokes a skinny cigarette while leaning against the doorway of the hen house. He is an expert lady chaser and, although fairly petite, has quite a presence in the barnyard. Oh, mon dieu.
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| This is Monster. She is the only hen who can outrun Pierre. You go girl. |
The neighbors (self-proclaimed chicken “experts”) have come over to tell us that Pierre is worth a lot of money. I have a $50 rooster on my hands, people! They gently encouraged me to cage him and get him into some sort of a Pierre breeding program, the idea of which is pretty hilarious to me. Pierre cost me $2.50 and, although my neighbors believe his carefully bred offspring could make me rich, I prefer to treat him like the scrappy, feed-store chicken that he is – happily roaming the property for bugs, crowing atop the round bale, and devoting at least three hours each day to skillfully chasing his women. To me, a rooster is a rooster, even one who has proven himself as the Napoleon of the chicken world. And it’s a bonus to always hear Edith Piaf play in my head when our little Frenchman prances by. He’s so fancy.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDO_CyiTiUY]