The Rooster Chronicles, Pt. III

Getting our new rooster turned into a nightmare. It’s a long story, so I’m writing it in a series. Be warned, there is a fair amount of cursing in this story, as there was in the real-time events as they unfolded. Statements that are italicized are the ongoing conversation and support from my Chicken Network, and have not been edited for spelling, grammar or content.

Here is Part III of…

The Rooster Chronicles

 

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Sunday, May 8: Mother’s Day. I wonder if the rooster is still alive out there???

~ Try to keep a location of him until nightfall. When it’s dark he will roost somewhere. Hopefully not to high. You should have very little trouble catching him at dark. They have terrible night vision. Good luck

Fugitive Update: A sighting!!!

Mom and I took the dog, Sam, for a walk around the back forty path. We were on our way back, when suddenly… there he was!! Thank goodness he’s brilliantly white, because I was able to grab the dog before he noticed Rooster, and I had to take off my own belt and use it as a leash to walk Sam past where the rooster was and take him home.

I went back to the house and fetched the dog crate and two of my most sexy hens (what constitutes a “sexy” hen???). I put them in the crate right by where we saw him.

I came back to the house and got them a jug of water and made them a tomato on a string, so they wouldn’t get too bored, and when I took it out to them I could SEE THE ROOSTER in the scruff about 50′ away from them!! I tucked the cage up against a bush at the base of a tree both to keep them in the shade and in hopes Fugitive roosts on top of them.

Me: He’s at the cage!! I’m like, maybe 60′ away and he hasn’t spotted me yet (or he isn’t concerned with me yet). What should i do???

 

~ Ack!!! Can’t wait for the next installment of “Roos of our lives”!!!

 ~ Leave him alone. Watch and see he will probably sleep on top of the crate then nab him after full dark.

~ This is an intense spectator sport!!!

 ~ Good luck! Keep us updated

I sat out there for an hour and a half. Fugitive rooster would come visit the ladies at the crate, then leave and disappear on some sort of walk about, then come back. Every time he left, I moved 10′ closer. I had my jacket spread carefully on my lap, hoping if I could just get close enough, I could wrap him in it… I got within 5′ of the girls and him, but still not close enough for a lunge, and he started to not come up as close to the girls now, growing suspicious of me. He wasn’t going to let me any closer than that… It was after 5:00pm on Mother’s Day, so I called it quits and went in for dinner.

I was so hopeful he’d be roosting on top of their cage when I came back after dusk! But, alas, he was nowhere to be found. Mom and I searched and searched all around the area, but we couldn’t find him roosting anywhere! If I only knew where he was, I could grab him! Everyone had agreed that he’d be “asleep” or in some kind of “trance” once he went to roost, it was just a matter of FINDING him.

I’m so close, I am NOT giving up now. Someone suggested a live trap. I found one for sale on Kijiji, I’m picking that up tomorrow and giving it a try!

Monday, May 9: Today is my birthday, and I shall catch this god-damned bloody rooster!

So I set up a live trap meant for raccoons. But right away it seemed too small, he’s a tall bird and he would’ve had to crouch/squat to get in it. I watched him approach it several times but not go in. So then we had the bright idea to use Sam (the dog’s)  huge crate, put the hen in her smaller crate inside of the huge crate, and attached a long rope to the door of the large crate. The idea being when he went into the crate to see the hen/get the food bait, I’d could pull the rope and shut the door behind him.

He never once went inside the large crate. 😐

So I sat out there and watched him and read my book and peed in the woods and did little dances to try and keep warm. When the sun started setting I followed him to where he roosted. He went DEEP into the woods. No wonder we could never find him when we looked for him roosting, he was roosting nowhere at all near the hen.

He picked a spot that was on a fallen over tree, about 3 feet off the ground, surrounded by other fallen over trees. He was literally in the centre of a triangle of fallen trees. Every step I took resulted in loud cracks and crunches of twigs and leaves under my feet. I checked my the time, and waited 30 full minutes for him to fall asleep once he’d roosted. I made my way, slowly, carefully, towards him. I would have to clamber over a fallen tree, but that should be ok, because he would be “in a trance”, right?

NOPE!

Every time I took a step, he turned his head towards me and made little clucking noises. I’d freeze and wait. We did this dance for another half an hour. My legs were shaking from being in a squat for so long, and my fingers were stiff and frozen. I tried to move once more, and he looked at me, his beady little eyes said, “Give it up lady, you’ll never catch me, I was born to run free!” and then he hopped off his roost and moved somewhere else.

We started the dance again at his new location. Again I spent so much time, moved so slowly, waited him out, only to have him move again.

It was pretty dark now, I needed the flashlight on my cell phone to move around without tripping. I could, luckily, still see the bright white of my fugitive. I also had no idea where I was, other than in the woods… somewhere.

Alone with a loose rooster.

I could hear things moving about, some of them sounded kinda… large. I texted Kyle and asked him to come out and keep me company. He asked where I was… “Umm, I dunno, I’m left of the moon, and right of that really loud Whippoorwill that’s calling. Does that help? No?” He drove the truck up to where I’d left the hen, and being able to slightly hear the music from the radio was a huge comfort. I started thinking about how I’d survive a coyote attack if one came for a delicious chicken dinner…

At the roosters third roosting location, I was able to sneak up on him. Closer… closer… This was it! I was going to get him! All I had to do was reach out and grab him in his trance. Frozen hands, don’t fail me now!…. And…. GRAB!

He was NOT in a fucking TRANCE!!! Not at ALL!!!! He EXPLODED the instant I touched him and his strong body and huge wing span bent all my frozen fingers backwards and knocked me flat on my ass. He ran off and I cursed a blue streak loud enough that Kyle was finally able to pinpoint my location in the woods.

At that point, I was done.

Surprisingly, and maybe done specifically to taunt and torture me, the rooster appeared near us while I was telling Kyle all about my hypothermia and broken fingers. The son of a bitch hopped up into a tree not 20′ from us and went to roost right there! It was time for Kyle to give it a try…

You know when something is moving, but it moves so slowly that you can’t actually see it moving? Like, watching the grass grow. That’s what it was like watching Kyle approach this rooster. I was jumping (small and quietly) up and down trying to restore feeling to my feet and legs, while Kyle did some of his ex-military bad-ass training on being very sneaky, on this rooster. It literally (I know how to use the word “literally” correctly, and it was literally) 30 minutes for him to cross those 20 feet and sneak up on this rooster. He was almost there. I had to pee so badly. I crossed my legs and my fingers and held my breath. Kyle slowly, ever so slowly, reached for the rooster… and…

EXPLOSION of feathers! – the rooster was on the lam again.

Me: Update: All told I sat outside in the woods for 5 and a half hours last night. Pretty sure I had hypothermia. This $15 rooster is not worth the trouble! My hubby wants to give the dog crate/rope trap one more shot today, but I’m so done! Also, it was my birthday, which I spent inhaling my birthday dinner, then running outside to get the traps set up, then sitting alone in the woods for 5.5 hours and freezing to death. I didn’t even get my cake. I hate this rooster. I’ve named him Dick.

 ~ Try the cage thing again, without the hen in there. Just food and water in the back of the cage… Maybe. He will want food, more then the hen. My rooster is a pig. Good luck.

~Omg. You poor thing. I’d be just as frustrated!! His name though… 😂😂😂😂

 ~ That made me bust out! Totally appropriate name!

 

~ Oh my. This is the best Rooster Diaries ever. You poor thing! My next suggestion: Long handled fishing net.

 ~ Lmao, love his name

~ Ha ha! Oh Richard!

~ Can you please start a video diary 😉

 

To be continued…

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