“COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO” – By Des Kelly

No, it’s not about the song, folks, but my You Tube clip is such

It’s about a “Special Rooster”, let’s simply call him “Butch”

Twas Farmer Jones who owned him, he was a splendid sight,

The story all about him, was told by an author unknown.

So far, I have written many “stories” about the abject cruelty of animals, reptiles & birds (including hens)who are locked up in cages, barely able to move, and forced to lay their eggs under the most horrendous conditions.

This time, happily, it is a different story, originally submitted to the Newsletter I regularly receive from the C.W.O. (Ceylonese Welfare Organisation), by a lady with a subtle sense of humour.

As I now do, especially for the thousands of “on-line” readers of eLanka, I first contact the original scribe, in this case, “unknown”, then add-on, a little extra, as I am doing right now, to now bring you the “tale” of Farmer Jones, his favourite Rooster, Butch, his brood of “free-range” hens, “free-range” eggs (the preferred ones for human consumption, as far as I am concerned), Politicians & even hopeful “Peace-Prize” winners like Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. Anyway, here’s hoping that all my readers enjoy reading this story, as much as I enjoyed writing it for you.

Farmer John Jones was in the “Fertilized egg business”.

He had several hundred young “layers”, or “Pullets”, as they are called, plus ten Roosters to fertilize all the eggs to come. He kept strict records on their performance, and any Rooster, not performing, was duly sentenced to the “soup- pot” & replaced. All these logistics took too much of his time, and so he decided to attach a tiny bell on the foot of each Rooster, each bell emitting a different “tone”, so that, even from a distance John could tell which of his Roosters was either performing, or not doing his job.

This was a canny move by John, who could now just sit on the porch of his farmhouse to complete the efficiency reports of his business. He did this now, by listening to the bells on his chook-farm.

Farmer John’s favourite Rooster was “Butch”. All was going well, until, one sunny morning, he noticed that old Butch’s bell wasn’t sounding at all, so off he went to investigate the matter. What he found was amazing.

All the othrr Roosters were busily chasing the hens, bells a-ringin, bluebirds singin, but the pullets were running (for cover), when they heard the Roosters coming. Then John confronted Butch to find his bell firmly lodged in his beak, so it wouldn’t ring. He (Butch) would then sneak up on a Pullet, do his job, walk away to sneak up on another.

Farmer John was so proud of Butch, he entered him in the “County-fair”, where Butch became an overnight sensation with all the judges. These Judges not only awarded old Butch with the “No-bell” Peace Prize, they awarded him with the “Pullet-sur-prize” as well . Clearly, Butch was a Politician.

Watch out, Trump & Un, who else but a Politician could figure out how to win (by default), two of the most coveted awards on this Planet of ours, by being champions at sneaking up on an unsuspecting populace and screwing them, when they weren’t paying attention !. Think about it.