Barry the rooster

Jim had been in the chicken breeding and egg business for a few years. He had several hundred young "pullets," or hens, and he also had ten roosters to fertilize their eggs. Like any good businessman Jim kept production records. Any rooster not performing went into Kristi's soup pot and was replaced with a new one. 

When keeping track of his roosters became too time consuming Jim bought some tiny bells and attached them to each of his roosters necks. Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell, even from a bit of a distance, which rooster was performing. With the improvement in his rooster tracking technology Jim could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

Jim's favorite rooster was a big yellow rooster he had nick-named "Barry." Barry was a very fine specimen who resulted from the crossing of a black rooster and white hen. Barry was very vocal. He crowed in front of about a third of all the other chickens, not just at dawn, but all of the time. Barry loved to make noise and became the leader of some of the chickens in the coop that seemed to crave the noise he made. They were very devoted to him.

On one particular morning Jim noticed old Barry's bell hadn't rung at all. When he went to investigate, he first saw all of the other roosters in action. They were all busy trying to chase down wary pullets. Of course the hens were running in all directions. Suddenly bells were ringing all over the yard. The pullets had gotten used to hearing the roosters coming, and they would run for cover.

Barry (far right)

Finally Jim located Barry. To his complete amazement, old Barry had somehow detached his bell and was carrying it in his beak with his tongue on the ball, so it couldn't ring. Soon enough, Jim figured out Barry's angle. Barry would simply sneak up behind an unsuspecting pullet, quickly mount her and do his job and then move on to the next hen.

Jim knew he had a very tricky bird on his hands. He entered him in the Dona Ana County Fair and Barry became an overnight sensation in the local media and among the fair judges. At the end of the rooster judging not only was Barry awarded the "No Bell Piece Prize" but he also won the "Pullet Sur-Prize" as well. The judges and media recognized that no other would-be leader of the coop had the abilities Barry did. When it came to sneaking up on the unsuspecting populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention he simply had no equal.