"" Writer's Wanderings: Caribbean Chickens And Crowing Roosters

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Caribbean Chickens And Crowing Roosters

It's six in the morning Grand Cayman time. The rooster across the street has already begun his crowing. I'm not sure how early it began but it is incessant. I fall asleep but awaken over and over again to the crowing. I am amazed that we can be three stories up and across the street and still hear him as if he were right out the window.

Cayman, as do all the other Caribbean islands we have visited, has tons of free range or feral chickens--however you want to look at it. They usually greet us in the parking lot as we wait for our rental car. They sprint across the roads, sometimes with a line of chicks behind them. But this year is the first one I remember being totally annoyed by a rooster who obviously has so much to crow about that he has to do it all day. Thank goodness he has the good sense to clam up at night. Maybe he realizes he could end up in the Jerk chicken pot if he doesn't.

Sometime long ago we were told by someone that the chickens are left to roam because they help to cut down on the bug population. I looked it up and yes, there are chickens that will eat bugs but I can't help but wonder if that is the real reason the feathered beauties are allowed to roam. And there are beauties.

Some of the chickens look like they could be put into a county fair back home--after a little fattening up with something other than bugs of course. The roosters are picture perfect too. Red feathered heads and curled tail feathers all nice and shiny in the sun.

Somewhere in there behind our condo were at least two
vocal roosters.
And now it seems the rooster of my mornings here has a rival. There are times when I can hear more than one crow. Protecting their territory? Their flock? Or just flexing their vocal chords?



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