A wolf can't hide amongst the sheep!

Saddam - an American rooster with an attitude.

Next thing I knew I was chasing around the shop with a net trying to round them up to go to the sanctuary.

Talk about fast food, these guys surely thought they were heading for the frying pan, the way they took off. Little did they know they were getting into a better dish without coleslaw, in hen heaven, or they wouldn't have eluded Mrs. DoLittle and two mechanics for over two hours.

Just as we thought we had one cornered under a car, he pretended to attack us and slipped by. We were crawling around on our hands and knees on the filthy floor between car parts looking for them as they suddenly had disappeared, when we spotted all four hiding behind a box.

If one of them hadn't poked his head out to see what we were up to, they'd probably still be there. They were no chicken brains, they almost outsmarted us, but Mrs. DoLittle was very persistent, believing that chickens should be scratching around in gardens, not grease pots.

Finally, with the help of some customers whose repair work was held up, we bagged them, minus the fries. All four boys were stuffed in a cage and loaded into the truck, which was a whole lot more healthy than being stuffed and loaded in the oven.

At that time Mrs. DoLittle could have done with an oil change and an overhaul herself. So when we got back to the ranch, we all had a bubble bath, using lots of elbow grease. Out emerged some, very bedraggled white boys and a bright pink, very clean. Mrs. DoLittle.

Proud boys they were, strutting and prancing around each other, puffing up their feathers as if to see which was the most handsome. After a couple of days it became apparent it was not possible to keep so many roosters together competing for female attention. Fights were breaking out over the hens. The weakest one was pounced upon by the three others and ended up as Ketchup quicker than you could say Colonel Sanders.

Nugget, the second smallest, was quickly whisked off to a vegetarian household for his own safety. The remaining two were equal in size and both seemed to accept that, mainly by ignoring each other.

They were named `The Colonel' and Mr. Ken Tucky. Each settled down in opposite ends of the chicken yard. Peace reigned in the coup for a few days.

Then suddenly The Colonel dropped a bomb on Mr. Ken Tucky. Yes, he did that dirty thing Mrs. DoLittle dare not mention here in case there are children reading this. The whole hen house was outraged. Poor Mr. Ken, Mrs. DoLittle had to use a whole jar of Vaseline to get him over that experience.

As for `The Colonel', well, he was banished from the sanctuary, renamed Saddam and taken to the cow shelter where he now lives happily with his own harem, three red hens named Faith, Hope and Charity.

The morale of this story is; a wolf can't hide amongst the sheep!