An elderly German couple are taking a rooster to court for crowing up to 200 times a day, which they claim is tantamount to “torture.” Friedrich-Wilhelm K. 76, and his wife Jutta, claim that the neighbors’ cockerel, Magda, starts up at 8 a.m. and doesn’t shut up for the rest of the day, the Daily Mail reports.
🐔 The owner of a cockerel named Magda, accused of crowing up to 200 times a day to impress the four hens in his garden, has been taken to court by neighbours who say they cannot tolerate it any more https://t.co/nxSuLMg4Kz
— Times Earth (@Times__Earth) August 8, 2022
- The couple wants the rooster removed. They don’t believe that the animal belongs in a residential neighborhood and want the rooster taken from the property in Bad Salzuflen in western Germany. “A cockerel doesn’t belong on a quiet housing estate,” said the couple’s lawyer Torsten Gieseke.
- They’re going to court prepared. They’ve been making daily logs of every time Magda crows. Needless to say, the logs are pretty long. “We can’t use the garden and we can’t open any windows,” Friedrich-Wilhelm told German television. “He doesn’t start until 8am because he is locked up at night but then he crows 100 to 200 times throughout the day. It’s unbearable.”
- They just can’t bear the sound of Magda crowing all the time. Once or twice might be acceptable, but the endless noise is a problem for the elderly couple, who just want peace. “It’s hard to talk about torture, but that’s what it’s like,” Friedrich-Wilhelm said. He claimed that another neighbor moved away two years ago because they could no longer deal with Magda’s noise.
- Magda’s owner has no intention of getting rid of the animal. In fact, Michael D., 5, claims he has to have Magda to keep his hens in line. “The hens need the rooster, otherwise they would pluck each other,” he said.
- The couple hopes that the court will intervene. “We really did a lot of tests. Our kids tried, our neighbors tried,” Friedrich-Wilhelm said. “The neighbor doesn’t give up his rooster and we have to either live with that, or we have to win in court.”
