An abandoned rooster is strutting around Gwinnett County, foiling all plans to capture him and waking the neighborhood at the crack o' dawn. Atlanta's 11Alive reported that the frisky fowl is "outsmarting everyone" and crowing loudly from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. every morning. One resident referred to the little fella as "a demon spawn from the seventh hell" but later admitted that he's "just being a rooster, but he needs to be a rooster someplace that isn't here." This particular "demon spawn" isn't the first rooster to ruffle feathers by coming home to roost in Atlanta.
In 2009, Roswell banned roosters after neighbors complained about noise. Said one man, "Ban the roosters. I'm asking for no roosters at all." Chicken advocates wearing yellow shirts began showing up at city council meetings and one woman brought a rooster to the podium to "dispel the myth they are big, bad characters." Alas, the ban was passed.
In 2010, a desperate Little Five Points resident took to the internet to report that a "beautiful, big rooster" had been roaming the neighborhood for four days. When three residents tried to wrangle the free-ranger, they found "he was fast and a bit intimidating."
A separate 2010 incident had Decatur residents chasing a rooster near East College Avenue. Decatur Metro pointed out this related tweet: "Saw #DecaturGA police officer chasing a chicken down railroad tracks outside Ice House Lofts about 12p today. The chicken was winning."
In 2013, East Atlanta became home to the saddest rooster news on our list when it was reported that residents were discovering decapitated roosters in the neighborhood. An APD sargeant told Patch that "just from my experience, this is relatively common" adding that in Zones 1 and 4 "it was not unusual to find headless chickens or goats discarded in random places." Poor chooks.
This January, Manuel's Tavern revealed a rooftop chicken coop. The one lucky rooster is a miniature Old English Bantam Rooster bought at a feed store in Cherokee County. He, along with his lady chickens, live in a "luxury" 550-square-foot insulated, air conditioned, heated, protected coop atop the Atlanta institution.
No wild roosters cruising around in your 'hood? There's always the Social Goat Bed & Breakfast, a block from Grant Park, where you can spend a cozy evening with resident roosters Velvet Elvis and Fabio and even bunk down in the "Rooster House."