In Pragadavaram village in India's state of Andhra Pradesh, a man was killed by a rooster during an illegal cockfight. The birds' owners tie razors to the animals' natural spurs and fight them to the death. From the New Zealand Herald:

As one of the organisers held the bird, preparing to release it into the arena, it struggled free and lashed out, inflicting a deep wound on the victim who stood nearby.

Cockfights were banned by the Indian Supreme Court as part of the 1960 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act but the practice remains popular in some areas, especially as part of celebrations for Makar Sankranti, a Hindu festival day...

A dozen other injuries were reported from cockfights held during the celebrations.

image: detail of "Cockfight in London, c. 1808" (public domain) Read the rest

A domestic rooster killed a 76-year-old woman on her rural property in Australia. The rooster pecked the woman, twice puncturing her skin, and she died. Unfortunately, she had preexisting conditions that caused her to bleed out very quickly. The physicians published the unusual case in the journal Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology. From the abstract:

The decedent’s past medical history included treated hypertension, hyperlipidemia, non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus and varicose veins... Two small bleeding lacerations were present, one of which was located immediately over a perforated large varix. Death was therefore due to exsanguination from bleeding varicose veins following an attack by a rooster. This case demonstrates that even relatively small domestic animals may be able to inflict lethal injuries in individuals if there are specific vascular vulnerabilities present.

image: Dgrady3 (CC BY-SA 4.0) Read the rest

In the video below, a rooster in India tangles with a deadly cobra that can deliver enough venom in one bite to kill 20 people, and many more roosters. From National Geographic:

The rooster pushes the cobra away from the other chickens, sometimes dropping and pecking at it and sometimes running with the snake dangling from its beak. The bobbing movements of the rooster seem well-suited for this kind of fight, making it harder for the cobra to strike with its lethal venom.

At the end of the encounter, the rooster swallows the weakened snake whole, sliding the reptile into its beak as the creature’s muscles coil uselessly a couple more times.

Read the rest