Pointing It out to you!!! Legends Are Made

I like writing, I like researching, I like activity, and I like running my mouth. I’ve been told that I am pretty well versed on a wide variety of topics. I occasionally get lost in the weeds when rambling on about a particular subject. Today’s subject is legends of the sport.

We were super active in breeding and showing our birds in the 90’s and remained active until the mid 2000’s. We were blessed to have met and competed against many of the legends of this sport. Some are still around and sadly some have passed on to the great rooster pit in the sky. Some were quiet and stayed to themselves and some were like me, loud and verbose. Some might call us “Loudmouths”, but we’ll have that discussion another day. Most were good people, some you had to watch like a hawk. Some just let their birds do all the talking and occasionally you’d see a shy smile when a bird performed exceptionally well.

At heart, I love research and if I saw something new that I’d never seen before, I would find a moment to ask questions. I learned a lot, some from the answers I was given and some from just simple observation. I learned a bit about pointing and holding a bird. (This is an art that has to be mastered over time and done repeatedly over and over with the same breeds. If you raise a bunch of different types of fowl, it is a hard row to hoe, as they are all different in their own ways.) I learned about the rules of the sport, I learned how to break these rules, I learned how to run and operate a successful pit. I learned how to lead by example and when to pitch a bitch and when to just walk away.

These are life lessons that you don’t learn by not doing. You have to be active, you have to spend your time in the yard 6 days a week for that 1 day of competition. If you have never spent a day sweating like a fieldhand washing water cups, you have not earned the right to swagger into the pit like a rockstar.

If you have never worried over a sick flock, you my friend are not a Roosterman. Most of the breeders I have met made their bones through hard work as a conditioner, a circuit feeder, or a pitter in the beginning and obtained their fowl through hard work and the knowledge to distinguish a good breed from a bad breed or through a more colorful story that I won’t talk about here and now as that’s not my tale to tell.

What my point here is…legends are made, they are not born. They paid their tolls to walk among the mere mortals that fight chickens on a daily basis. Some touched it briefly, some are immortalized by the birds that bear their names. So, whether this fame was obtained by “Hook or Crook”, it is not important. It was obtained, and that’s more than most of us can ever say.

Got a Quick Story for ya:

The Ugly Hen

As many of you know, we had a large farm operation in Sunset, LA back in the 90’s. We met a lot of great people in our time there. We interacted with many cockers of legend. As time passes, I have many memories that come back to me at the oddest times, and while some are bittersweet, some just make me chuckle out loud.

We bought Buckwheat Gamefarm from Jim and Trudy Wilcox when they decided to semi-retire. With our close proximity to Sunset Recreation Club we would receive many visitors every month. Some would stop to have a drink and talk chickens, some would come to dinner and talk chicks, some would just come by to pick up something out of the store that they happened to leave at home, oh and talk chickens…needless to say we talked a lot about chickens.

I was blessed that I had people bring me roosters and hens all the time, as most cockers are generous by nature and would bring me birds that they thought were exceptional. I appreciated the gesture, but I have a critical eye when it comes to brood stock.

The question of how I obtained the “Ugly Hen” is still a mystery. She could have been left behind at our pit “Little Sunset” that we owned and operated or she could could have been a gift from a generous cocker visiting the big pit. I know she was kept in a pen so I lean to her being left behind when someone came to “Little Sunset”. I honestly don’t remember, but we had her and she was the ugliest hen, I have ever seen. She was a black Mug looking hen, with a large head and a broad back. Her legs and wings looked stunted. She was quite pitiful in fact but whether she was a gift or left behind at the little pit, I felt obligated to keep her for whatever the reason, but make no mistake, she was strictly quarantined and there she stayed for some time. Every so often, Jerry would come in and ask me if he could dispose of the ugly hen, but for some reason I kept giving her a reprieve and time went by.

Anyways, going into one Sunset weekend, I had a well-known visitor at the farm. Mr Carroll Nesmith came by to ask if I had a hen he could borrow for the weekend as he hd left his whore-hen at home by mistake. I felt no remorse and frankly was laughing internally as I took him out to the pen and told him he could use the Ugly Hen. The look on his face was priceless as he looked in the pen and saw the pitiful sight that I was loaning him. I maintained a straight face as Jerry covered his in embarrassment that I would have such a hen on my property.

He took the hen and thanked me and went to the pit. As some of you may know Blackwater Farms had dominated the Sunset Pit in the mid 90’s, but as this was the late 90’s they had struggled a bit more in their Derby Competition. This weekend they were in the running to win it all. As we went through the weekend, Blackwater Farms got better and better with every fight, and it soon became clear that in at least one of their shows they were gonna win this derby. At the conclusion, I was kind of shocked that Carroll didn’t return the Ugly Hen, but I was glad that she was off my yard, so I didn’t think too much about it.

The following month, I was talking with Carroll and jokingly brought up the fate of the Ugly Hen. He told me that his birds had performed so well that he had made a promise to himself the night before that final round that if he won that derby, he would breed that Ugly Hen because she was such a good luck talisman.

Now I know he didn’t breed that pitiful excuse for a hen, but I heard through the grapevine that he traveled all over with her as his whore-hen, I guess the final joke was on me.

This only proves one thing to me; Breeders have mercy, Cockers have faith, and sometimes a Ugly Hen is the best thing that ever happened to all of them. This is how legends are made.

(This story has appeared in the back of my catalog for years, but I thought it needed a wider reach)

Keep ‘em crowing…