Mexplanations

I was confused. It’s the middle of the night, why are the roosters crowing? Did I sleep in? Have I gone blind, and I can no longer see the sun? No. I was under the cartoonish belief that a rooster only crows at daybreak, kind of like nature’s alarm clock. That belief got shattered after a few days of noticing that roosters crow all day, all night and sometimes in between. I also noticed roosters and chickens running around free in the back streets of Mexico. Imagine that, no chicken fences in sight! Gangs of chickens would stand defiantly in front of my moving vehicle, and at the very last minute, would move out of the way. Was this some form of the game of “chicken”? Was this how they initiated young members into the flock?

I know that in Canada & the USA, the chicken is the only animal that will never die of natural causes. You never see an old chicken, and chicken retirement homes have been replaced by state of the art factories that give the typical chicken a miserable 5 weeks of life, before it makes it to your plate. Being an only child makes it hard for me to think of sharing my room (a square meter) with about 17 family members, in a house with about 40,000 others soon to be nuggets. About 5% die suffer from heart failure or other issues related to the lifestyle imposed on them. (interesting stats here) So my first thought was that roosters and chickens have escaped the rat race of the 9 to 5 job back home and decided to run away to Mexico and taste the good life. I could picture them in my mind’s eye tying their feathers together to make a rope, planning their escape Hogan’s Heroes style. Then would begin their long journey to Mexico, avoiding at all costs the Colonel & old McDonald or they would be McCaught and McFried.

In the end, it just turns out that chickens have been running free here for a very long time, and that the roosters are there to protect them. In his book “When Do Fish Sleep”, David Feldman says that ornithologists believe crowing marks out territory – kind of like male dogs peeing, only noisier and easier to clean up after. Kind of like saying: “This is my coop, get the heck out of my way, don’t mess with my woman.” (interesting article here) As it happens, mornings are the most active time for them, so they get the “Me casa es NO su casa!” out of the way, round up the flock, count the eggs and chat about the weather. Morning is also when we are more easily awoken, so we notice it more when the rooster is crowing as we are desperately trying to get some beauty sleep.



Sometimes, the crowing is the alarm for an intruder. We saw a pretty strange sight the other day, a rooster got into a fight with an Iguana, who was going for the eggs I presume. There was crowing, and lots of trash talk, and the Iguana had to find another breakfast that day.
I figure, to avoid the dreaded “chop chop”, roosters have become the hardest working animal in Mexico, crowing incessantly all through the day and night to make itself appear busy and useful.

What can we do about the issue? Short of a chicken taco, castration would work, but sort of a drastic solution. Imagine if the same solution would cure snoring in men? Enough said, let’s leave them crow and just add it to the natural sights and sounds of Mexico.

Labels: chicken, hogan's heroes, Mexico, rooster