Chicken stuff

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1999:

Joseph Kia, 44, and his son Josiah
Kia Jr., 23, both of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii,
were charged on May 13 with allegedly kidnapping,
threatening, robbing, and beating at gunpoint
two other men in a dispute over a cockfight.
Four alleged accomplices were at large.
The Louisiana Senate Agriculture
Committee on May 18 killed a bill by state senator
Paulette Irons (D-New Orleans) which would
have banned the use of sharpened gaffs tied to
cocks’ feet in cockfighting. Cockfighters testified
that the gaffs are humane because they allow the
birds to kill each other faster.

The biggest event of the year in
Hachita, New Mexico, population reportedly 40
people and 100 dogs, is the annual two-person
chicken roping contest, hosted by the Hachita
Saloon each May since 1995. One person tries to
rope the head while the other ropes the feet.
Fruita, Colorado, on May 16 celebrated
“Mike the Headless Chicken Day,” in
dubious honor of a cock who survived beheading
in 1945 because the ax blow by farmer L.A.
Olsen didn’t sever the bird’s brain stem. Feeding
Mike by dropping grain down his gullet, Olsen
exhibited him until the bird died in 1949.