Pierre: A Fancy Rooster

Without meaning to, I acquired a very fancy rooster.  He ended up in a box of chicks from the feed store this spring and was supposed to be a little female easter egger - a kind of mutt chicken that lay pink and green eggs.  Turns out, the chicken people at the feed store accidentally mixed the high dollar birds in with those that cost $2.50 a pop, and I got myself a purebred Ameracauna.  Oopsie. 

I was skeptical about this one from the get-go and, sure enough, eventually "she" sprouted wispy tail feathers, a large comb, and the tell-tale snooty, superior attitude that can only mean one thing in the chicken world:  rooster.  We are convinced that this guy speaks with a thick French accent, and, when none of us are looking, dons a beret and smokes a skinny cigarette while leaning against the doorway of the hen house.  He is an expert lady chaser and, although fairly petite, has quite a presence in the barnyard.  Oh, mon dieu.

This is Monster.  She is the only hen who can outrun Pierre.  You go girl.

The neighbors (self-proclaimed chicken "experts") have come over to tell us that Pierre is worth a lot of money.  I have a $50 rooster on my hands, people!  They gently encouraged me to cage him and get him into some sort of a Pierre breeding program, the idea of which is pretty hilarious to me.  Pierre cost me $2.50 and, although my neighbors believe his carefully bred offspring could make me rich, I prefer to treat him like the scrappy, feed-store chicken that he is - happily roaming the property for bugs, crowing atop the round bale, and devoting at least three hours each day to skillfully chasing his women.  To me, a rooster is a rooster, even one who has proven himself as the Napoleon of the chicken world.  And it's a bonus to always hear Edith Piaf play in my head when our little Frenchman prances by.  He's so fancy.