Rooster ruffles feathers
A rowdy urban rooster has been told to pull its neck in.
Babs has fallen foul of his residential neighbours — and earned a visit from council inspectors who have warned his owner that “crowing roosters are considered a noise nuisance”.
Olivia Cook, a 24-year-old parttime dispatcher who fosters all sorts of animals, rescued Babs and his sister Ginger — named from the animated movie Chicken Run — from across the other side of Christchurch last year as tiny chicks.
Just a few centimetres tall, she took them back to her North Beach home and tried to keep them warm and fed. They lived in her bed, snuggling on body heat.
An enclosure was also in the bedroom but the baby roosters preferred to cosy into Cook.
Albie, a hulking ginger rescue cat, also looked over them, and could be left alone with the chicks with no fears they would be eaten.
But after about three months, they were big enough to move outside.
Cook says they hated the transition and would run inside, back to her bedroom.
Slowly, they got used to it. Their wings are not clipped but they stay close. They have never tried to escape. They enjoy a large run down the side of the house, shared with two other rescue chooks — Audrey and former battery hen Chickalita. Some time after 7am, when Cook lets Babs out of the hen house, he crows to announce the dawning of a new day.
He then crows sporadically throughout the day. Parents and children passing on the school run sparks him into action, along with any visitors coming or going.
“He’s like a guard dog,” says Cook, a vegan who gives away the chicken’s eggs.
Otherwise, she describes Babs as “pretty chill”. The neighbourhood loves Babs, Cook says, and people often comment how they enjoy hearing him crow.
But last month, Christchurch City Council received a noise complaint over Babs’ crowing. The complaint came as a shock when council inspectors visited Cook’s home. “I really panicked, worried they would take him away. We have a huge bond since I’ve raised him since he was a chick, and when you put in that much effort, you develop a very close bond.”
Cook has bought him a velcro collar for his neck, which helped stifle his crows. She now keeps Babs inside his enclosure a bit longer and makes sure he’s not let out before 7am. And he doesn’t crow late at night — or make a racket between 10pm and 6am.
“I think we’re in the clear now,” Cook says.