Local & State Headlines

Breeder: Fowl not fighting

• Gamefowl breeders defend the birds they raise in a rural Worth County neighborhood.

Susan McCord

SYLVESTER — “The gamecock,” say two Worth County breeders of game chickens, “is like no other species on earth.”

Henry Bass and Larry Parker are proud of their birds, a few hundred of them, that reside on several lots the men own in far-western Worth County, very close to the Dougherty and Mitchell county lines.

The birds are a little smaller than regular chickens, weighing around 5 pounds. Bass likens them to organically-grown produce. They’re raised without growth hormones or other feed additives, he said.

But most of all, they’re rare, and beautiful, say the two men.

“We’re in(to) the game chickens — there’s not a lot of game chickens around,” said Bass, who traces his interest to childhood, when a grandfather raised the birds.

“There’s just not one prettier than a game chicken.”

The males of the flock have a particular tendency, one that’s kept under control with a rubber strap attached to a band around the roosters’ legs, he said.

“The roosters will fight each other — you don’t have to make them fight, that’s game birds.”

Parker, like his neighbor Bass, has been into game chickens for several decades.

“A friend, he had some. I just jumped in there with him and started raising them and trading them and swapping them,” Parker said.

“It’s just something I enjoy. I don’t do much else — I like to mess with the chickens.”

Parker said the two men are not alone in their affinity for gamefowl and won’t be alone tonight, when the Worth County Board of Commissioners considers a zoning ordinance limiting the number of fowl allowed per household.

“I could fill that courthouse, all three floors, with people that’s got game chickens,” he said.

For several months, a few people in their neighborhood of scattered mobile homes on large lots have been pressing the county to restrict the number of birds allowed at each residence.

“A neighbor down there has people thinking we raise these chickens for fighting — that’s not the truth,” Bass said.

“Just because they’re game roosters, like pit bulldogs, doesn’t mean people raise them for fighting.”

Parker’s fenced yard is a little over 2 acres. Bass has 10, he said.

An ordinance proposed by the Worth County zoning board seeks to limit the number of birds per home in any area zoned residential to 15. The restriction would be devastating, Bass said.

“A hen generally sits on 14-16 eggs. If she hatches all the bitties, you’re over the limit,” he said.

Bass estimates he has 100-125 birds on his property now; the raising season begins in August, after the hens start laying.

“If you don’t have no eggs, you don’t have no chickens,” he said.

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