From Slate Magazine

*** a Doodle Do
The story of Winston, the rooster who wouldn't die.
By Jon Katz
Posted Thursday, March 30, 2006, at 5:44 AM ET



Winston the rooster

The thermometer on the side of the barn read 4 degrees when I came in
at 6 a.m. to feed the barn cat and scatter some grain for the chickens.
Winston, my speckled rooster, was lying on the cement floor,
motionless. I'd never touched Winston, nor would he have allowed me to,
but I moved closer. He didn't stir. I prodded him gently with the tip
of my boot and there was a slight response.

I was certain he was nearly dead, and felt surprisingly sad. Winston
looked bewildered and seemed humiliated. He had come to me almost two
years before, from another farm, and he had a history. A hawk had
entered the chickens' coop and gone after his hens. The other rooster,
his brother, ran for his life, but Winston stood the predator down for
a few precious minutes until the farmer got there with his shotgun. The
hawk fled.

Winston's honor and flock were intact but his left leg was mangled.
From that point on, he limped like the war hero he was, adding to the
gravitas he already seemed to bring to his life and work.


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I bonded with Winston, in part, because I, too, had a gimpy leg. And he
inspired me with his refusal to surrender his dignity or abandon his
duties.

He crowed faithfully at 4 a.m., and then hourly, more or less,
throughout the day. He followed his three hens all over the farm and
the pasture, hobbling over quickly if they squawked or wandered too far
or if a stray dog appeared to menace them.

He befriended Orson, my troubled, territorial border collie. I often
would look out the farmhouse window and see, to my wonder, the two of
them sitting side by side in the sunshine, gazing out at the valley
below.

At dusk, Winston gathered the hens and escorted them into the barn,
where they would hop up onto their roosts to sleep while he kept an eye
out for foxes, weasels, coyotes, and, of course, hawks.

I'd named him in honor of the other Winston, for his stature and
leadership and similar eloquence: His crowing could be heard far away.
I worried that he was disturbing my neighbors, but they assured me they
were happy to hear farm noises. His salutes seemed to bring back lost
memories and mark their day in a comfortable way.

I would be sorry to lose him. But local farmers all agree: You don't
call the vet for a chicken. I didn't have an ax, the surest way to kill
a rooster swiftly, so I went back to the house for my .22. I wanted to
make sure he didn't suffer.

Confirmation came from my farmer friend Pete, who's had chickens all
his life. He happened to come by, and he walked into the barn to look
at the rooster. "This guy is gone," he said. Fond as I was of the
rooster, it seemed his time had come.

But as I was returning to the barn with my gun, my friend and farm
manager Annie DiLeo (she calls herself the Bedlam Farm Goddess) pulled
up in her pickup truck. Annie is another refugee from the city, a
flatlander from suburban New York City who'd suffered a tragedy and
left that world behind. She had a gift with animals.

Almost every farmer knows someone like her. Animals trust and love her,
and she seems to understand what is happening with them. Nothing they
do or need is frightening or repellent to her. She loves them all more
or less equally, except for goats, her personal favorites. She has
nine.

I'd christened her the Goat Lady of Cossayuna, because when my goats'
horns became infected, she nursed them back to health. It was
remarkable: When I tried to give them antibiotic shots, they ran. If I
tried to put medicine on their wounds, they butted. Then Annie would
arrive, offering cookies, calling their names, hugging and kissing
them, and they'd wag their tails and run around in circles with joy.
Then they would sit patiently while she cleaned their wounds, applied
disinfectant, and checked their stools. Before long, they were waiting
at the barnyard gate half the day for her truck. They bonded so
completely that when they were well, I sent them home to live with her
and her other goats; it seemed selfish to keep them apart.

Somehow, Annie communicates with animals in ways that people like me
don't understand or, frankly, quite believe in. I'm always shocked at
how sheep and donkeys, even my shy border collie Rose, take to her and
welcome her presence. Perhaps not surprisingly, she is now a
shaman-in-training, studying with an animal soul-retriever in Vermont.


So, I quickly put the gun back when I saw Annie's truck. Annie would
not like to see me shoot anything and would tell me so. "Winston is
dying," I said, and she rushed into the barn, found him, and scooped up
the limp rooster into her arms.

His eyes opened and he stirred, almost as if he were turning himself
over to her. He actually rested his head on her shoulder as she talked
to him and stroked him. I saw Winston come to life right in front of
me.

Annie put together a straw nest and laid him in it and then, without
saying a word to me, drove home and returned with crushed oyster
shells, homegrown grain, and feed laced with antibiotic powder. She
hauled out one of my heat lamps, left from last winter's lambing, and
set it in a corner. She built a low-lying perch "so he can get off the
ground and still keep an eye on his hens." And he accepted her
touching, force-feeding, and warming him.

Over the next few days, the deep winter came, and the night
temperatures dropped into the minus 20s. Annie came over each morning
and evening to give Winston his special diet, make sure he was warm,
and place him on his perch so he could do his job. He still looked weak
and sluggish, not moving more than a few feet all day, and he remained
uncharacteristically silent. Between Annie's visits, I brought him
greens, apple slices, and some of my wife's chili.

My farmer friends made fun of Annie, and of me for having her around.
"You're giving medicine to a chicken?" one guy asked. "How 'bout satin
sheets and a pillow?" He offered to bring his ax over and "fix him
right up." Another volunteered to do the job with a rifle. "That's
dinner you're keeping warm." Eager not to appear foolish, I shook my
head, too. "Can you believe all of that trouble for a rooster?"

But Pete, a perceptive and honest man, the kind who doesn't need to
ridicule, took me aside. "I saw that rooster the other day," he said.
"He was dead. I was going to offer to snap his neck. I don't know what
she's doing, but she does have a gift," he said. "He's a different
animal. I know what I saw, and I never saw it before."

A couple of days ago, Winston crowed at 5 a.m. It wasn't the most
forceful wake-up call, nowhere near what he could muster in his salad
days, but it was a welcome sound. When I went into the barn, he was
walking around imperiously, pecking at the apple core I had left him.


The first day temperatures rose above freezing, I saw him march the
hens over to the bird feeder, where he and the girls like to peck at
the seed the blue jays scatter on the ground.

He is better, though not quite himself. Today he led the hens up to the
pole barn, then back. He has a hearty appetite, a softer but persistent
crow. He can't hop up on the high roost with the hens anymore, but he
likes to sit on the perch Annie built for him. Perhaps he will make it
through one more spring.

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