A few days ago, I saw a post on Facebook about a friend that had an encounter with a rooster during which the rooster had attacked him and caused an injury to his hand. When I saw the post, it reminded me of a time when I was growing up and about a rooster we had at the farm that would also attack you given the chance.

This short story is a remembrance about the rooster, my Uncle Homer and an encounter they had one afternoon. Hope you all enjoy.

Way back when I was a growing lad on the farm, my grandmother, Della Lee, otherwise known as Ma to all of us, made sure we had chickens at all times to insure a steady supply of eggs for our daily diets as well as for a ready source of meat for other meals such as fried chicken or chicken and dumplings. These chickens would be of various types such as game chickens, bantams or Leghorns. But her favorite type of chickens was Rhode Island Reds which were good layers and were not prone to much disease or illnesses.

Many times, we would get a batch of biddies in the late winter or early spring and care for these little chicks until they reached maturity and began laying eggs. Included with these new chicks would often be a baby rooster, maybe several that would also be cared for until reaching maturity. However, the fate that awaited these roosters was a trip to the frying pan or dumpling pot. But, as every chicken farmer knows, chickens need a rooster in the pen or chicken coop with the hens to have good egg production. So it was that sometimes one of these roosters lucked out and was allowed to live and become the “He Man” of the chicken coop. This story is about one of these lucky ones.

Now this particular rooster that lucked out and become the “Foghorn Leghorn” of the Lee family chicken coop was a large Rhode Island Red that I nicknamed Big Red. As he aged, he grew bigger and bigger and eventually became a huge rooster. Along with growing larger and larger, this rooster also became more and more aggressive when anyone would enter the chicken pen to gather the eggs, fill the troughs with chicken feed or laying mash, check the water stations or clean out the hen houses.

If you were not careful, upon entering the pen, Big Red would start to circle around behind you and when he caught you not paying attention, he would attack you, doing his best to inflict injury upon you with his more than ample spurs. Many times, I was chased around the pen by Big Red with him doing his dang best to flog me. Though he never actually did any injury to me, it was not for lack of him trying because he did.

But one day, Big Red made a serious mistake when trying to flog someone who entered the pen. On this day, my Uncle Home was with me during the time I was feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs. Aa matter of fact, he had the feed bucket in his hands and was doing the feeding while I was checking the water and getting ready to go inside the hen house to gather the eggs. We were standing several feet apart as each of us went about our individual tasks. 

All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw it going down. Bid Red and Uncle Homer were doing some rendition of a Texas Two-Step or a maybe a version of the Barn Yard Shuffle. Big Red was doing his best to flog Uncle Homer, coming at him high and hard. Uncle Homer was doing his best to stay out of harms way, all the while going around and around to keep from getting spurred. Suddenly, like George Forman in the famous bout with Joe Frazier when George knocked Joe out and Howard Cossell was screaming, “Down Goes Frazier! Down Goes Frazier!”, Uncle Homer swung the feed bucket in his hand at Big Red and caught him dead behind the head with a thunderous blow.

 “Down Goes Big Red! Down Goes Big Red!” Uncle Homer had knocked that rooster clean out! He fell flat on his face and I honestly thought he was grave-yard dead. But after a few moments, I saw a little movement, then Bid Red began to wiggle about and finally, he wobbled up to his feet. He was staggering around the chicken pen like Otis Campbell on a two-week drunk on the Andy Griffith Show. He slowly made his way to the very back of the pen, well out of reach of Uncle Homer and his feed bucket.

Anyway, after this day, if I was in the pen by myself, Big Red would still try to get me, though I must admit with not nearly as much malice in his heart as before getting cold cocked by Uncle Homer. If I happened to have a feed bucket in my hand, he tended to leave me alone. But, if Uncle Homer was with me, Big Red was nowhere near to either of us. He stayed far out of reach and let us go about our business without any threats or attempts to flog us.

That little light tap on the head by Uncle Homer made a lasting impression on Big Red. I guess you could say even if they are not really smart, chickens can be taught. Or at least the one I called Big Red learned a lesson from Uncle Homer that he never forgot.