Grandfather Found Dying in Kitchen with Trail of Blood Leading to Chicken Coop

By Amanda Thomason February 21, 2023 at 1:02pm

Chickens are certainly having a moment right now, as many formerly uninterested people are now considering starting their own backyard flocks as the price of eggs soars.

But it’s nothing to jump into lightly, with start-up and feed costs often far outweighing the monetary value of the resulting eggs. And then there are the roosters.

While roosters aren’t necessary for home flocks and hens will lay just fine without them, they are useful for protecting the flock and providing fertilized eggs — but it can come at a cost.

Most people who have any knowledge of roosters other than the idyllic, naive vision of the farmyard creatures crowing at daybreak have strong negative feelings about them for a reason. Roosters are notoriously vengeful and vicious.

But Brahma roosters — an especially large but generally docile breed of chicken — take the cake.

The bird in question, a Brahma rooster owned by 67-year-old Jasper Kraus, moved from one flock to another in Ireland. The reason for his relocation was that he’d shown his true colors and attacked a child — Kraus’ 3-year-old granddaughter.

“We should have put him down there and then because we knew he was no good,” Kraus’ daughter Virginia Guinan said, according to the National World. “But my dad protested. He had too big of a heart and didn’t want me to get rid of the rooster — so he took it instead.”

An extra-large rooster with huge spurs and a history of violence — what could go wrong?

Kraus was a retired horse trainer and very experienced with animals, but in a series of very unusual events, things quickly went south.

While the exact details are unknown, on April 28 of last year, Corey O’Keeffe — a tenant of Kraus — heard Kraus screaming and found him lying on his kitchen floor in a pool of blood, with scratches and a deep wound in the back of one leg, the Irish Mirror reported.

O’Keeffe called the emergency line and was instructed to stop the bleeding and then administer CPR, which he did for 25 minutes until backup arrived.

O’Keeffe said that Kraus was drifting in and out of consciousness, but the word “rooster” was clearly heard several times. He also noticed a trail of blood leading outside to the chicken coop.

Guinan got a call and rushed over to the horrible scene. Her father — who suffered from a multitude of other health issues and had been fighting cancer — had lost liters of blood and ultimately died of a heart attack.

She said later that Kraus had been outside in the garden, visiting his recently deceased dog’s grave, when the rooster came up behind him.

“You wouldn’t think a chicken can be dangerous — but they can be,” Guinan said. “It was a malicious attack, absolutely brutal. There were liters of blood all over the floor when I arrived.

“This particular bird was thought to be a nice and docile breed, and good for children. But this shows any breed can be dangerous.

“Having pet chickens is a big thing for families now, especially getting children involved. For this to happen is so rare and unbelievable, but it can happen.”

Submit a Correction →