21 July 2008
Assaulted by Aggressive Poultry
Posted by Richard under: Chickens; Smallholding .
In a momentary lapse of concentration yesterday morning, the cockerel took his opportunity to mug me. He has always been very territorial, and we have discussed many times ‘necking’ him due to his aggresive tendencies - but never got round to it.
This time he ran in from the left and confronted me - then launched a direct assault. He caught me square on the kneecap - I managed to get a boot in and he scarpered. I didn’t think much of it, until later.
By mid-afternoon, my knee was starting to ache, and by the evening it was stiff and painful - it had swollen to resemble a cricketball in colour and shape…with a small puncture wound at the centre. I started to consider that perhaps the cockerel was working for the Bulgarian secret service - a’la Georgi Markov.
Twenty-four hours after the unprovoked attacked, I am now pretty much immobile - can’t really walk or drive. The doctor confirmed a case of septic prepatellar bursitis….or infected housemaids knee. The treatment will consist of painkillers, strong antibiotics and some freshly-made chicken soup (once I am mobile enough to catch me a cockerel for the pot).
4 Comments so far...
David Turner Says:
21 July 2008 at 1:46 pm.
They can be quite aggressive. We had one a few years ago that used to creep up behind up and attack! He caused me to have an extensive session with the physiotherapist before he got his just deserts. Following an unprovoked attack I hit back at him with a stick, missed, and hit the ground instead. The result was a (very painful) trapped nerve from which I had to recover before I could pout him in the pot. He had the last laugh - tough and not very tasty!
I hope you’re feeling better soon.
colouritgreen Says:
21 July 2008 at 4:41 pm.
oh dear. - hope you are without pain soon! must admit this is the reason I keep putting off having a cockerel - I remember my parents had an aggressive one, had to enter the hen run with a broom! - solution: coq au vin, then try again, and hope for a nice one…
susi Says:
21 July 2008 at 7:43 pm.
Hope you’re feeling better soon.
Unless you really want a particular cockerel for breeding, I wouldn’t bother keeping one - it’s so easy to beg or buy hatching eggs. We don’t have a cockerel now, the last one we had could be absolutely charming or completely vicious - it seemed to depend on which side of the perch he had got off in the morning. He made life really difficult as we always had to be armed with a stick and could never turn our backs on him.
Richard Says:
27 July 2008 at 8:20 pm.
My knee took five days to recover enough to walk properly and drive - and the cockerel is no more, he is an ex-cockerel. We can all walk the fields in safety again.
The only problem is that without the cockerel, they girls are free-ranging miles in every direction - they need the boy to keep them together.
We have first dibs on a young Maran down the road - if he is friendly, he stays - but the first sign of real nastiness - he’ll be going back.