Queer Birds Find
a Home to Roost

Julius and Big Daddy, the roosters who chose each other as companions, have found a permanent home on a farm in Alabama, reports foster mom Brenda Lee in Los Angeles. The roosters came to L.A.'s A Dog's Life Rescue organization last year as a couple, and continued to eschew "normative chicken social conventions," wrote Lee's partner, Jayna.

Big Daddy, who is much larger, "is Julius's protector, and at night he roosts over Julius like a mama hen sitting on a brood of chicks," Jayna wrote.

The women agreed to foster the fowl until a place could be found with rooster-friendly zoning codes. It took eight months, Lee said.

Their suburban San Fernando Valley neighborhood technically forbids roosters for noise-abatement reasons ("The rescue group did some talking," Lee says), as does New York City, where the roosters made quite a splash on gay blogs.

"We only got two calls. And one person wanted to split them up, which was out of the question," Lee said.

But this week the foster moms fielded a call from an Alabama farmer, and Julius and Big Daddy were flown Thursday to their new home. (Barbara Wilcox, The Advocate )