It's a tough life for an unwanted rooster.

You're banished from the city and your owners wish you were a hen.

They can't bear to kill you and the kids have become attached.

DOMINICO ZAPATA/FAIRFAX NZ People dump their unwanted roosters at a spot known as 'The Divi', near Raglan, where they end up making a home in the nearby bush.

So you're outta there, in the middle of the night, dumped on the side of the road to fend for yourself.



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Gone. Lost. Forgotten.

Hundreds of roosters end up on rural roads, highways, reserves and parks around New Zealand.

There are cockfights, lack of food and water, run-ins with dogs and the risk of getting hit by a car.

And it's not just the roosters that pay the price. Don't forget the crowing: all day and night sometimes.

Waikato Poultry and Pigeon Club president Fiona Taylor said roosters are getting a bad name.

"It makes poultry people look bad and chickens look bad as well. And it's the owners who signed up to look after them and didn't finish the job."

In the poultry world, hens rule the roost.

People want hens because they produce eggs.

Taylor said the problem is there is no way to tell the sex of a newborn chick early on.

"It can take around five to six months before it starts crowing for you to figure out it's a boy," she said. "But by that time, you've become attached to it. You can't find a new home and you don't feel comfortable to kill them."

A man who did not want to be named fits Taylor's profile exactly. He, his wife and three children kept chickens on a lifestyle block.

Out of the 15 hatched chicks, only three were hens and the rest were roosters.

"They bred, quite prolifically. And we couldn't tell whether they were going to be a rooster or a hen until they made this horrendous racket."

He said they tried to sell them, and even placed an ad in the local paper. But no one was interested.

"No one wanted them, and I thought, I can't kill them. I wouldn't be able to do that at all.

"So I thought the best thing to do was to release them."

Placing them into cardboard boxes in his vehicle, the man set off near the bush line and began releasing them every few kilometres.

"I just thought they would have a really nice time, hang out and eat bugs and sleep in the trees."

He never saw them again.

Taylor said dumping roosters is irresponsible and not in the best interest of the animal.

"That rooster has been cared for as a domesticated animal, so once it is set free, it is nothing short of cruel. It hasn't necessarily got the survival instincts for food to prevent him from going hungry.

"So it just gives the bird a bad reputation. They're seen as a nuisance, as a pest."

Taylor said roosters should be treated like cats and dogs.

"If you could imagine the outcry of people for taking a dog and dumping it or taking a cat and dumping it, and it goes from getting daily food and water to being dumped in the wild - it should be no different."

Figures from Hamilton City Council show there are only five registered roosters in Hamilton. The city's Animal Nuisance Bylaw helps regulate some animals, including roosters, in the city.

"If we receive a complaint about a rooster, we usually manage to resolve these with the voluntary rehoming of the rooster to an out-of-town address by the owner or the owner signing the rooster over to us," council animal education and control manager Susan Stanford said.

Council records show that in 2015, there were 28 complaints about roosters. This year, so far, there have been 18 complaints.

The Hauraki District Council recently removed roosters causing a ruckus at a Waihi reserve by knocking them out with a special anaesthetic-coated food.

The birds were temporarily relocated and if they can't find a home, the roosters will be "humanely euthanised", council communications officer Paula Trubshaw said.

Trubshaw said roosters have been an ongoing issue in the region.

"It's not something that we want to be dealing with," she said. "When they are dumped in the parks and reserves, they do cause problems. They can be aggressive around young children if they're not being fed and they can crow at all hours of the night."

NZTA Waikato/ BOP highways manager, Niclas​ Johansson​ said roosters are occasionally spotted around the Waikato.

"Our contractors who monitor the highways around the Waikato every day tell us that the animals tend to stay on the sides of the highway, where they can hide and feed in the vegetation."

Some areas where roosters and other poultry including ducks are spotted include: Near SH27 at the Kaihere Hill rest area, near SH23 between Hamilton and Raglan and on the side of SH1 around Hydro Road in Huntly, north of Ngaruawahia.

"While it is upsetting that these unwanted animals are dumped off at these sites, we do not consider them to be a major safety concern to road users in the region."

Taylor admitted people who want to get rid of roosters have few options. They can be sold for breeding purposes, to be eaten or they can be humanely killed.

It's a tough life for an unwanted cock.

FREE-RANGE IN TUAKAU

Kim Solleder drives over the Tuakau Bridge every day and sees roosters loitering around the reserve.

Six years ago, she decided to capture one of them after setting up her own free-range chicken operation on her lifestyle block.

She named him Buck Rogers.

"He was a very randy rooster. He was huge, probably the biggest one in the pack and not aggressive at all."

He fathered around 40 chickens and was mainly used for breeding purposes.

"I got this explosion of chickens. It was amazing."

He was put down after contracting a disease, but his chickens live on.

"I've got another rooster now that's been part of the family. He's Buck Rogers' son, Roger Ramjet."

* Audio courtesy of RNZ.