Chicken politics never really end out in the barnyard. Sometimes their stories are funny, often sad.
This is both — a tale of submission, violence, exile, survival, eventual redemption and, of course, the last laugh.
By now, most Fishtown Local historians would realize that we must be talking about the legendary lifetime loser rooster known only as No. 4. He got his name back when we only had four free-range roosters. Everyone else was in pens, safe but slightly bored. Each batch of laying chickens can only have one rooster, otherwise the alpha male will croak the beta male birds. We had two groups in separate quarters and an alpha rooster in each. The remaining runner-ups were living large and frisky outside in the barnyard, ”free as a bird”, as the saying goes, but unavailed of the women only on the other side of the wire enclosure.
No. 4 was always at the bottom of the rooster pecking order — all mostly his same age, including his blood brother, his twin, named No. 1 who was at the top — both brothers home-hatched and grown. The problem was that the other three roosters wouldn’t let him eat. Even though we scattered the food far and wide, the others would ignore the meal just to chase No. 4 away, into the corners or out of the pen all together to deprive him. And it got worse, as people kept begging for us to take their “rescue roosters” due to crowing problems with the neighbors. Soon, we were up to seven with you-know-who still at the bottom of the totem pole. We didn’t rename him No. 7, but we could have.
The violence worsened. The only way to feed him was to carry his breakfast around the corner of the barn where the bad guys couldn’t get at him. But soon, they began to wait until I left, then dash around the corner to pound the poor guy and take his lunch money. This went on and on, with No. 4 and I trying to invent new ways of safeguarding the chow, including me standing guard over his meal with a stick.
Finally, the attacks grew so bad, I opened the front gate for him, tossed out some food and he gratefully exited his old life into a new world. The family dogs thought this was a hilarious new game for them to play, so we tossed his food and straw for a bed under a low slung golf cart which could give him cover against four-legged predators, day and night.
The other roosters were pissed that he was no longer available as a punching bag. They snarled and hissed at him through the wire fencing that now separated them. I don’t think they were too pleased with me either.
And there he survived for years. He had a sense of humor though, as he’d line up outside the hens wire enclosure and crow away just to excite the ladies and enrage the other roosters. The males would hop up and down opposite him, “air fighting” through the wire, which the ladies adored. After all, who doesn’t love to be fought over?
No. 4 was a tough bird, though, and as my overcompensating overfeeding began to bulk him up, he started to become braver. A couple of his original torturers died off and No. 4 began flying over the outside wire and back into the pasture run. He’d hop up on the back of one of our new goats and the other roosters couldn’t get at him. (More chicken humor?)
Then one day this past spring, his brother, the infamous No. 1, finally succumbed to the many pecking order challenges from the newer roosters. He keeled over while eating. No. 4 didn’t come to the funeral service, but he did better — a few days later, he flew over the wire for the last time and back into his former world. He had not only survived all his peers who had tortured him, but now he was treated as the new No. 1 on the pecking order! He was bulked up and toughened up and the others stayed out of his lunch and out of his way.
So yes, he was able to live happily-ever-after and, incidentally, was never a tyrant to the roosters below him on the pecking order in his 6 months of rule. No. 4 died this past week and was buried with full farm military honors, a very emotional ceremony.
Redemption, revenge, salvation — call it what you will. If the barnyard was a church, this would be a sermon and No. 4 would be its saint. I was proud to be his disciple.
Gloucester resident Gordon Baird is an actor and musician, co-founder of Musician Magazine and producer of “The Chicken Shack” community access TV show.