WITH Thor the rooster bled and broiled, the hens fought to rule the roost. Big Bertha was first to crow at dawn, her timbre tortured as an adolescent boy's - more cwaaka-cwaka-waa than cock-a-doodle-do. But Chicken Little was not to be denied. There could be only one dominant chook.
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Their battleground was a backyard in Thornbury, busy with palm trees, pumpkin vines and discarded road signs. Resident Daniel Zaccagnini, 35, recalls the morning he was woken by the mangled sound of a crowing chicken. ''It was weird. Thor's crow had a real nice ringing of a note, real solid. Bertha's at first was off, she wasn't hitting the notes properly but she was giving it a try.'' He demonstrates, over a beer in his kitchen: ''Bawk-bawk-ba-ba-baaaaaa.''
A chicken changing from clucking to crowing, pecking and trying to have sex like a rooster is a rare beast, uncommon as hen's teeth. Proverbially, it does not bode well: ''A whistling woman and a crowing hen, are neither fit for God nor men.''
Burwood Bird and Animal Hospital's Dr Pat Macwhirter, a specialist in all things fowl for 17 years, says it's her first encounter with a dominant chicken. ''I get it in budgies all the time,'' she says. ''Classically, chickens have a pecking order, the most dominant ones, usually the strongest, are top and the weakest are bottom. But from time to time, a chicken will produce male hormones. They will start crowing, developing a cone and spurs, become more aggressive - anything to do with male secondary characteristics. If you've got testosterone on board, they tend to be more bossy and will peck at another chicken.''
In Thornbury, every bird knew its place in the natural order. But when neighbours complained of Thor's crows last month, he was dispatched. ''We had the council involved so, yeah, well, we ate Thor,'' Daniel says. He and flatmate Sam nicked his neck and bled him in the backyard. A Cambodian friend turned the bird into a feast. Thor tasted like chicken.
With their rooster gone, first Big Bertha started to crow, then Chicken Little. ''They would crow at each other, competing for who's louder, who's got the better crow,'' Daniel says. ''There was a big power play going on for that backyard. It's kind of fascinating, the crowing, the acting territorial - laying eggs wasn't on their agenda.
''They were more interested in being dominant than being a chicken and I have no idea why that is. Thor was gone and Bertha ruled the roost, and then Chicken Little somehow turned the tide.''
A neighbour, who declined to be named, says the pre-dawn chorus sounded ''like someone was strangling a rooster while it was gargling battery acid''.
A visit from Darebin Council prompted the demise of Bertha, the louder of the two chooks, last Wednesday. Daniel and Sam roasted her in the kitchen, near the glass tank that houses Crikey, Sam's small, wasabi pea-eating saltwater crocodile.
Which left Chicken Little, a bullish brown-and-red chicken with white feathers about her tail and neck. She continues to crow like a rooster, but from the more civil hour of 7am.
Dr Macwhirter says it's likely the chooks each developed an ovotestis, a gonad with both testicular and ovarian aspects, which prompted them to become dominant. Such hens are unlikely to lay eggs. In rare cases, they might undergo a complete sex change. ''If the chooks are happy campers, I would let it be,'' she says.
Daniel hopes Chicken Little will live on, perhaps alongside some relatively smaller and quieter bantams. ''She is on her way to being a crower but I am hoping she tones it down because we don't want to get rid of her. We joke about it: 'Don't sing the Death Song!'''
