Cockfighting outlawed: State ban takes effect today

MONTEGUT -- On a small patch of moist, black bayou earth, their wings beat in frantic bursts. The feathered, brilliantly plumed bodies hurl themselves forward, crashing together again and again with soft thuds.

Feathers are torn away. Beaks and legs stab with murderous intent.

At the end of what was likely the last legal cockfight in Montegut -- and therefore one of the last legal fights in the country -- one of 21-year-old Woody Prosperie’s young Kelso roosters was crippled.

In a quick and violent twist of Prosperie’s arm, the bird’s neck was wrung.

"This is what happens to the loser," Prosperie said.

The bird was bested in a fight with another of Prosperie’s gamecocks, an older bird with one fight under his belt, about eight hours before Louisiana’s cockfighting ban took effect. The law was passed last year and became active today, making Louisiana the last state in the country to outlaw what devotees call a sport and animal-rights advocates call a blood sport.

Prosperie’s defeated rooster, which had never fought before, struggled to fight even after his leg was broken.

The animal hobbled forward repeatedly only to be knocked to the ground and pounced on, his opponent gouging him with the steel spikes attached to his leg and pecking away.

Eventually it was too much.

After the birds were separated and squared off about a half dozen times, the injured rooster fled the field, turning away from the pit and trying to dash away.

When he did it a second time, the fight ended.

"You don’t want to see a bird run in the pit," said plumber Tony Prosperie, Woody’s father, watching the action in the backyard of the elevated home he shares with his wife and son. "The crowd will go crazy, cheering that other bird on and laughing at your rooster because he ran away. Usually they won’t quit though ... It doesn’t matter what the damage is. Unless they’re downright bleeding to death and can’t get back up, they won’t quit."

Prosperie initially told a Courier photographer and reporter he would "spar" a pair birds for this story, meaning a short bout with rubber stoppers placed over the roosters’ spurs to avoid serious injury.

Instead, he and Woody opted to fight the birds with gaffs, slightly curved spikes about 3 inches long, since the fighting cocks would be soon be illegal. A second pair of birds sparred after the first, fatal bout. Neither was injured.

The gaffs are attached on each of the birds’ two legs and fit neatly over the roosters’ natural spurs like miniature bayonets.

Other times, birds wear knives -- short, sharp blades attached to one leg. Prosperie and his father broke out a large tackle box containing dozens of blades and gaffs of varying lengths, about $2,000 worth of fowl weaponry. Since Congress made trafficking cockfighting weapons illegal last year, both father and son are unsure of what they’ll do with the implements.

Prosperie and his father have raised fighting cocks at their house in Montegut for about eight years. At 14, Woody Prosperie picked up a keen interest in raising fighting birds from a friend, and brought a few roosters home.

"My first thoughts were, get those noisy (expletive) chickens out of my yard," Tony said. "When Woody started I was pretty much against it because those roosters are loud."

But then the younger Prosperie got expelled from middle school and sent to an alternative-school program because of drug problems. He was also required to a serve a few months in the parish juvenile detention center and complete an in-patient substance-treatment program. While he was locked up, he begged his father to take care of the birds, and soon Tony Prosperie had become fascinated with the breeding, fighting and husbandry aspects of cockfighting.

When Woody got out, his devotion to raising and fighting birds meant he spent more time at home with his parents and stayed out of trouble.

"It got my kid off the street," Tony Prosperie said. "And if killing a chicken is all it takes to keep my kid off drugs … I’ll kill every damn chicken in the universe."

Though the state law passed last year gave cockfighters 12 months to either "fight off" or otherwise unload their birds, on Thursday there were still about 100 birds living in the neat, clean cages on Prosperie’s lawn.

Different strains of fighting cocks are named for famous breeders -- some long dead -- who have established winning bloodlines. Woody, who said he grew to love the science of cross-breeding birds, pointed out roosters as Kelsos, Butchers and Doms, by the color of their feathers and their size and shape.

Woody and Tony Prosperie plan to sell most of the birds. The new law makes owning birds meant for the cockfighting pit a crime, and first-time cockfight organizers and participants can get up to six months in jail and up to $2,000 in fines.

"I’m going to have to get rid of the majority of them," Tony Prosperie said. "It’s going to be illegal to fight them. You’re going to have to hide like a criminal."

Judy Duthu, a 59-year-old cockfighter and friend of the Prosperie family, said she and her husband spent years building a solid reputation as a breeder of game fowl and had hoped to use the income to supplement their Social Security checks.

The birds sold purely by breeder reputation and word of mouth can bring in hundreds of dollars each.

"I guess we can go on welfare and food stamps," she said.

Woody Prosperie’s girlfriend, 22-year-old Beth Couvillier, said she started cockfighting three years ago. "And I fell in love. Win, lose or draw, nothing has ever made me feel more proud than this," she said, gesturing at the cages and birds all around her. "What are we supposed to do with all this?"

Though cockfighting will be illegal in all 50 states, birds will still be bought and sold, as long as the buyer declares he plans to uses the chickens for breeding and not for fighting. Web sites abound for gamecock devotees and so do networks of buyers.

As he held one of his birds Thursday, Woody Prosperie said the birds are only made for one thing: "to fight."

Gambling on cockfighting was banned last year, driving many cockfighters out of the open and into secluded fields, barns and other remote locations.

The law that became effective today will not eradicate cockfighting, with its strong roots in south Louisiana, the Prosperies said.

Rather, the state’s fights will take place in secret locations, just as they do in dozens of other states, joining the shady world of dogfighting and other illicit activities.

"I’m going to continue to be a law-abiding citizen … until they catch me somewhere fighting a goddamn chicken," Tony Prosperie said. "And then I got to hope I get a judge who isn’t an animal-rights activist."

Staff Writer Robert Zullo can be reached at 985-850-1150 or robert.zullo@houmatoday.com.