Rooster-plucking tale nasty

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By Andrew Ashton on Sat, 29 Dec 2012
The Regions: North Otago
Brian Ross
Brian Ross
An animal-loving Otematata farm worker said he felt ''physically sick'' after he returned from a Christmas holiday to find someone had yanked the display feathers from his pet rooster's tail.

Brian Ross said he had returned from two days away on Boxing Day to discover his 4-year-old rooster had been left traumatised by the actions of apparently drunken youths who plucked the cock's tail feathers.

''We believe it happened between 24 minutes past midnight and 1am on Christmas morning. Our neighbours heard people yahooing at the time.''

Mr Ross said the whole of the rooster's tail had been plucked, which would have caused the bird a lot of pain.

''They have pulled the whole lot out one by one, and we are not talking about small feathers.

A 4-year-old pet rooster recovers from having his tail feathers pulled out on Christmas morning. Photo by Andrew Ashton.
A 4-year-old pet rooster recovers from having his tail feathers pulled out on Christmas morning. Photo by Andrew Ashton.
''Whoever it is who has done this, they are sick and they need help.''

The rooster had previously been happy to be around people, but was now frightened of humans, he said.

''He's not a happy chappy.''

Police in Otematata said they had no suspects for the incident, but Detective Warren Duncan said anyone with information should contact either the Kurow or Otematata police stations.

- andrew.ashton@odt.co.nz

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Proactive

Submitted by ffolkes on Sat, 29/12/2012 - 4:27pm.

Agreed, Hype.O.Thermia, but this kind of backgrounding may be best handled by a private investigator. As when the family origins of an adopted person are checked before marriage.

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Rooster

Submitted by ffolkes on Sat, 29/12/2012 - 2:51pm.

Yes, they need a bit more than 'help', intentional injury of animals being a type of psychopathology.

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Cruelty to animals, humans

Submitted by Hype.O.Thermia on Sat, 29/12/2012 - 1:01pm.

Three days ago, "50 rare seagull chicks have been stoned to death in a remote Canterbury river, dealing a blow to efforts to help the population recover its numbers". Now this "hilarious prank" - I suppose, to those who carried it out - hurting a friendly rooster by pulling out all his tail feathers.

It is well-known that cruelty to animals is strongly linked to cruelty to vulnerable humans, especially children. I would like to see offenders' names tagged with an alert on police and CYF and WINZ computer systems, so that if any incidents come up in future, no matter how anecdotal, particular attention is paid to investigating people who have already shown this tendency to cruelty.

Knowing that the new boyfriend who has moved in has a record of cruelty to animals might give added urgency to complaints that on the face of it seem not all that serious - this time - and avert tragedies.

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