Buying an animal during corona time, but after a number of years you come to the conclusion that you no longer want to spend time or effort on it. Dumping unwanted animals into the wild is an unpleasant after-effect of the pandemic, because there is not a place for all animals. “Roosters are problematic.”
Niels Kalkman of the Animal Protection Organization increasingly hears and sees that animals are dumped in the wild, especially chickens. “There are also a few chickens walking around in my neighborhood. No one is going to call the animal ambulance for that, they actually find it pleasant.”
Kalkman explains that these dumpings are not the best for the animals themselves. “It’s not ideal for a domesticated chicken. In an urban area there is often enough food to be found, so they will be fine. But we would prefer to see another destination found for them.”
Animal shelters have room for many animals, but housing roosters in particular is not always possible. “These are problematic because of the neighbors, for example. There are some specialized bird shelters, but not enough and some people don’t bother to take the poultry there.”
In the coming weeks, animal shelters expect a significant increase in requests for the placement of roosters, says Sandra Beijert of the Groningen Animal Shelter. “We always get called down around Easter. A lot of eggs are hatched during this period.” She also refers to projects at some schools, where around Easter time there are incubators in the classroom that hatch chicken eggs. “And we often manage to find a place for hens, but this is not the case with roosters.”
Beijert also says that this is due to the noise that roosters make. “We have space to accommodate 80 roosters, but they also have to go. And rehoming is very difficult because of the noise. That is why we cannot always accept all the roosters that are offered to us.”
At the Animal Shelter in Groningen, where, according to Beijert, animals from Drenthe are also regularly placed, three roosters were recently illegally dumped. And for one of the roosters it almost became fatal. “This rooster was dumped in a coop with all the chickens that almost killed him. We found the other two roosters along an 80-kilometer road.”
These three roosters were lucky enough to end up with Beijert and her colleagues, but not all roosters can consider themselves so lucky, she explains. “There are also costs associated with dropping off animals at the shelter and for many people this is simply too expensive. People often drive on to drop the animals in nature and I think it is very common for roosters to be sex.”
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