Northwest Indiana Bureau

By Andy Grimm / Post-Tribune
LOWELL, Ind. (Post-Tribune) ― The nearly 80 roosters caged at a farm in Lowell may only have a few more sunrises left to weclome with a crow.

The birds -- some 77 Asian fighting cocks and hens -- have been at an undisclosed location while Lake County Sheriff's Department detectives close out their investigation of an alleged cockfighting farm in Calumet Township that was raided two weeks ago.

The future for the hyper-aggressive birds, say their farmer caretakers and county officials, is not bright. The birds' owner, Randall T. Martin, could face criminal charges for possession of metal cock spurs, cockfighting magazines and a dead, federally-protected Great Horned Owl in his house in the 5500 block of West 45th Avenue.

Martin's attorney, Arlington Foley, declined comment.

The charges likely mean the birds won't be going back to Martin, or to their lives as poultry pugilists, and several thousand years of breeding as fighters means they won't be able to be reintroduced into barnyard society.

The brightly plumed birds have to be kept individually in cages rather than in normal chicken coops because the birds will attack each other and fight to the death if allowed to mingle.

"They're too feisty to mix with other chickens," said the farm's owner, who asked not to be named. "I don't even know if anyone would want to eat them, they'd be so tough. You could probably get some soup chickens out of them."

Their stock even as chicken soup may be falling, said Suzanne Crider, director of the Starke County Humane Society, which sheltered more than 60 birds this spring after sheriff's police busted an in-progress cockfight in rural Grovertown.

The Starke County birds tested positive for steroids and other drugs commonly used to boost the size and aggressiveness of gamecocks, Crider said. More than 50 people -- from as far away as Colorado and Mexico -- were arrested on charges related to the illegal fight, and the forfeited birds were destroyed and cremated within days, Crider said.

Authorities were concerned about the threat of avian flu because some of the birds had been smuggled in from Mexico, and U.S. Humane Society officials told Crider destroying the birds was the humane thing to do.

"They were all muscle and pumped up on steroids. They weren't exactly anything I would want to eat," Crider said. "If you put them up for adoption, you couldn't have them near any other chickens. The only people that would want them are the same sort of people you took them from on the first place."

More than 180 chickens, all of them fighting breeds, were in cages in Martin's partially flooded back yard. Those taken by police showed signs they had been prepped for fighting by having their fleshy combs and wattles cut off, and their beaks had been filed down and sharpened.

Animal-cruelty groups reported only two other cockfighting arrests in the state in recent years. Most busts take place in rural areas where authorities won't notice large numbers of birds or the relative hubbub of fight nights, said Scott Wilson, mid-states director for the Humane Society.

Cockfighting, which is illegal in all states save Louisiana and New Mexico, has increased in popularity now that the Internet allows gamefighting enthusiasts across the country to arrange clandestine fights, Wilson said.

The Humane Society is backing federal legislation that would make it a federal felony to transport fighting birds across state lines, Wilson said.

"The people involved in cockfighting are into a host of other illegal things," said Wilson, who notes that many people arrested at cockfights will have pending warrants for other crimes.

That's why Lake County officials have kept the birds' location a secret. A champion fighting bird can be worth hundreds of dollars, and is far more valuable as breeding stock.

"We don't need anybody to know where they are," the farmer said Wednesday. "They're beautiful birds, and it's a shame this happened."

(CBS 2 and the Post-Tribune are news partners covering stories in the communities of northwest Indiana. If you know of stories happening in this region, contact us.