Note: I’m still interested in replies to the post before this; check it out if you have a moment.
Who’s that yellin’ in the background? It’s a rowdy cock. The domesticated junglefowl. I’ve called customer service and reached somebody in the Philippines with roosters crowing in the background. As a customer service monkey I’ve received calls from Philippines, Hawaii, and the US southeast, all with roosters in the background. You’d think a species with so many members over such a broad range might have more drift in its vocalization, but that shit is quite consistent and unmistakable. Good job, cocky boys.
Most of the times I have heard that call from a live animal were on the phone, but a few times have been in person. The most recent I remember was on a visit to Lake Hylebos, when roosters were lurking in the bushes near the entrance. Never heard or saw them at Hylebos after that. The birds looked smaller in real life than in my imagination. The video game Sekiro has ones the size of a dude.
I never really thought about it before recent years, but how amazing is it that in ancient BCE domestic chickens made it from Southeast Asia all the way to Europe? Global trade when many were far from understanding a global earth. It really provokes the imagination. If chooks got to Etruria from as far away as Funan, what other kinds of people and creatures could be hanging out in places one doesn’t expect to see them? Might have been a very colorful world.
The Rooster is one of my least favorite songs by Alice in Chains. As I’ve mentioned before, there was a spot on the tape of Dirt where you could pause and flip to skip both Rooster and Junkhead. I remember the notes. Two rounds of uwus. The Cockatrice is the name of my big gay fantasy RPG that doesn’t exist yet and may never come to fruition. Haha. Fruit.
A cockatrice (as my character Jen would say, a coskalips) is worth note. A lot could be said about it. By the time it was invented, chickens had become ridiculously important to the world. Eggs, eggs, eggs, and to some extent, that meat. That means male chickens were not needed in large numbers. You just eat ’em and let the best have all the gallies. But what does that mean, psychologically? Maybe nothing. In more rural times and places people are less perturbed about slaughter. It’s easy for me to imagine a medieval person feeling weird about cockerels tho. Maybe the ones you killed come back for revenge. Maybe one could be born from union with serpents and poison your eggs. There were a lot of evil horse stories too. If this animal is necessary, perhaps the need itself is a thing to fear.
I’m not interested in talking about the horror stories and calamities – especially incipient calamities – related to factory farming. Or the folksy stories about how your grandma sliced and diced them. There’s plenty of room for that elsewhere on the internet. These posts are for talking about birds as interesting critters. Chooks are pretty interesting little beasts.
If you need to know where I stand on eating them, yeah, I do it. One of these years I should get over that, but damn. Some emeffs are too delicious. Factory farming is indeed a nightmare on every level, again not talking about it, so I’d be better to not do this. My compromise on meat for the moment is that I’ll only eat beef on special occasions, or if somebody puts it in front of me. By weight beeves produce the most carbon. Non-ruminants put out much less gas. In the future I may revisit that, may stop eating meat, but that ain’t now.
You know who has some interesting articles about chickens? Darren Naish, of tetrapod zoology fame. That is all.
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