Segundo and Worthless

A Tale

Not all of my stories are about cycling. This one is a story that has two cyclists but they are not on their bikes. No, this is a tale about two chickens, nay, roosters.

I bought a replacement flock of chickens. Dogs ate my old flock. There is a job that gets little respect but requires a high degree of professionalism. It’s sexing chicks. Don’t get too excited, chicks are baby chickens. They are sexed in the egg, a chicken sexer can be 98% certain of a hatchling’s sex. The guy who sexed my chicks was out getting a Frappucino when two of my eggs went by. I wanted one rooster, I got three. The big red guy, true to breed, and the twins.

I would have named them Castor and Pollux but they are chickens, not Greek myths. In Greek, Castor is “He who excels”. Pollux means “very sweet”. I had a couple of unwanted roosters. Neither excelled or was sweet. I named them Segundo and Worthless.

You are supposed to have five hens to one rooster. I have eight hens. It doesn’t take algebra to figure out the ratio. If, by chance you grew up on a farm, you would know that makes for a ruckus in the hen house. I’ve got nothing against whacking a rabbit for gumbo once in a while but I’ve got a real issue with feathers and food.

So what do you do with twin roosters? I asked everyone I knew and no one wanted to step up to the plate and help me out. No one but Sponge Bob. If you have forgotten, Sponge Bob and I ride together. (BIG FLAG! This is the cycling tie in!) Sponge has a brother in-law and a mother and a sister. (Did it take you as long to figure this out as it did me? Damn you’re smart.) The extra little bits of family live on a nice little ranch. They have lots of fields, miniature donkeys, peacocks, swans, bovine and equines.

Sponge suggested that his family on the hill could use a couple of more roosters. There would be food and company and the noise wouldn’t bother him at all as he lives ten miles north. It’s best at this point I mention my darling wife Nancy. She did not grow up on a farm and rarely if ever has done those deeds that require darkness and a burlap bag. She did not take the darkened road, I had to lead her astray.

So, one recent dark night Nancy warmed up the truck and I headed out to the chicken coop with a burlap bag. Chickens sleep when it gets dark and you can walk right in and pick them up off the roost. Once you toss them in the bag, things get pretty quiet. Quiet as a couple of roosters in a sack can be. I threw the sack in the back of the truck (Did I mention Mama’s side of the family is as hillbilly as Snuffy Smith?) and we headed for the ranch on the hill.

I had forgotten, or never noticed, that all of the pastures have eight foot high fences. Why? I don’t have a clue. Fence was on sale maybe? We drove past looking for an opening and nothing. Mom’s gate has tall and closed but low and behold bubba in law Bruce’s gate was open. I had my darling, devoted, led astray wife kill the lights. I hopped out grabbed the sack of roosters, jumped the cattle guard and with a shake and a wiggle, Bruce had twin roosters.

Sponge Bob told me the next day that he’d asked Bruce if he’d noticed any extra fowl. Bruce asked if they were speckled, Sponge said “Could be.” Bruce said the were walking back in forth in front of the cattle guard. I never said they were smart roosters. Eventually they will find the other chickens. Sponge will hear no end of complaints about roosters that sound like a transmission going bad and me?

Rufus, the remaining rooster, has decided that since there are no longer three roosters, he has to make up for the missing twins. If only he was Caruso, if only...