The residents of 13th Street apartments will sleep well now that the roosters are gone.
Students returned to Gainesville after break only to hear the continuous crowing of five nameless roosters. In the leasing office on 725 NW 13th St., a piece of paper hung asking a single question: “Who feels personally victimized by the roosters next door?”
“They shouldn’t expect to see or hear them back,” said Wiley Wood, the owner of Gainesville Floral Exchange — and the roosters’ former keeper.
Wood, 48, confessed to keeping the roosters in a cage outside the shop, just down the street from the complex. But as of Wednesday morning, they have been relocated, he said.
An exhausted Christina Zaldivar, 19, said after an endless symphony of squawks, her only option was to call the police.
“They’re right next to my window, and they’re annoying as s---,” the UF international studies sophomore said.
Zaldivar said when she looked out her window, she saw a large cage — presumably the rooster’s retreat.
“I know there’s more than one because what happens is one squawks, and then another one tries to squawk louder,” she said.
Zaldivar said she reported the roosters more than once and many of her neighbors felt frustrated too, which prompted the leasing office’s petition.
Gainesville Police officers have responded to complaints of the rooster’s disruptive nature on two occasions this week, GPD spokesperson Officer Ben Tobias wrote in an email.
The most recent confrontation occurred Wednesday morning after someone complained about 10 minutes of constant crowing, Tobias said.
“The call was cleared with the code that he (the officer) was either unable to locate the source of the noise or that it was no longer making noise upon his arrival,” he said.
Luckily for those losing sleep, the unwanted alarms won’t ring again. Wood said he gave the roosters away, but he explained why they were living on 13th Street to begin with.
The florist is also a farmer with property in Levy County, where he raises chickens and other animals. At his farm, the rooster-to-hen ratio had become dangerous, forcing him to kick the roosters out. A little more than a week ago, he brought them to Gainesville to give them away. Wood said it’s better to have more hens than roosters to avoid “coop abuse.”
“The males end up roughing up the females,” he said. “You really need like a 1 to 8 ratio, and so when that batch of ‘em grew up, some of ‘em had to move on.”
Despite their distinct midnight calls, Wood said none of the birds had names.
The residents of 13th Street weren’t able to address the troublesome roosters by name, and luckily for them, they never will.
“Well the roosters are gone,” Wood said. “And they won’t be back.”
@molly_vossler
mvossler@alligator.org
