Chesney, a very handsome and colorful rooster, came into the Happy Trails rescue program through a cockfighting raid in Lorain County several years ago. He was only one of 44 chickens that had been confiscated in this case.
Chesney feather's were brilliant, rich shades of dark-reds, red-browns, and red-blacks. He was a thing of beauty to look at, but not at first.
Like all the other roosters, Chesney arrived with all the feathers having been shaved from his stomach and all the way down his legs. He delicate skin was burned red from the razor. His once crowning glory, his comb, had ruthlessly been cut off by his owners. No anesthetics are ever used -- usually a knife is sufficient to slice the comb off. This is all part of the preparation for a rooster to fight. The feathers are shaved because it's a blood sport -- they can get to each others vital organs much easier this way. The combs are cut off so they get less blood in their eyes because a comb will bleed a great deal when cut open with a sharp claw.
Chesney's spurs had also been cut off the back of his legs. This procedure is done so that the spurs can be replaced with something even more lethal -- a metal band that is secured around the leg that has a razor blade attached. This can make the rooster a fierce competitor in the eyes of their owners, for when roosters fight, they fight with talons flying first -- hence, out come the razor blades to do the most damage.
During a period of recovery, we worked with the chickens to really get to know them. Chesney was one of many who really took to their caretakers.
He loved to be held. LOVED it! He
would fall asleep in your arms while you were holding him, and get so comfortable that on more than one occasion people asked if the chicken had died. He was merely content and felt safe in the arms of his human friends.
Chesney became an ambassador for Happy Trails, as well as a teacher and a professor at several schools and universities. You think I'm kidding! Chesney made appearances at many educational institutions, including the University Of Akron, my alma mater. He and I have regularly been given the opportunity to speak to the students in the Ethics, Intro To Social Problems and Social Problems classes. It's one thing to explain to students how animal fighting affects our neighborhood and communities and what animal fighting is all about. It's quite another thing to hand a rooster to them that they can hold, pet, and experience, knowing that it used to be an animal that had to fight for it's life. He had a way of bringing the story home for the students.
Chesney also humored us and made public appearances at many, many community events. He was always a good sport when he had multiple little hands petting him at once. Never did he even consider biting or pecking at a person. Not once.
Could this truly have been the same bird that arrived at Happy Trails with a shaved chest, a comb that was cut-off, and was so aggressively violent with other roosters that he fought through the metal wire of his cage and actually ripped off the ends of his own toes? What type of life was this poor, pathetic creature forced to live? Kill or be killed...something that was not of his own choosing, but rather something he was forced to do. For fun. For sport. For someone's sick amusement.
And yet, here he was at Happy Trails, enjoying life visiting with small children, teaching students what incredible personalities roosters have, and helping to bring about an awareness of the horrors and the reality of cockfighting.
Everyone at Happy Trails loved Chesney, and he was a favorite pick when volunteers got to choose animals to take
to a special event. Chesney even visited nursing homes through the Happy Trails Farm Animal Visitation Program. What? A former cockfighter bringing joy and happiness to the elderly residents of nursing homes? Why, yes he did! Chesney was very cooperative and would tolerate much handling, petting and smooching.
The one thing that we were always very conscious of was the fact that sometimes Chesney's stubs of his toes hurt. He had to have arthritis in them, and as he began to get older, he sat down more and more. We began to retire Chesney from having to attend too many activities.
The last week of his life we could tell that he really wasn't feeling very well. He would twist his neck around and tuck his beak backwards into the warmth of his feathers as he napped under the soft glow of his own personal heat lamp. I would pick him up and hold him every day and let him know how much we loved him and appreciated everything that he had gone through. We kept hoping that he was just having an "off" week, but I think deep down we all knew better. Finally, sensing that his time to cross into the world of the spirit was very close, we had him scheduled to go to the vet the next morning. When we can't repair or help an animal to heal, often the kindest thing to do is to provide it with a humane euthanasia.
However, morning feeding time came on Monday, February 1st, and we realized that Chesney had passed on during the night -- he had chosen on his own accord to graduate and move on.
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