This is a story about Jacob, a most notable bird.
A farmer was in the fertilised egg business. He had several
hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets' and eight or ten roosters,
whose job was to fertilise the eggs.
The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the
soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time and seemed very wasteful, so he thought a great deal about the problem and devised a plan. He bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.
The farmer's favourite rooster was old Jacob, and a very fine specimen he
was too. But on this particular morning the farmer noticed old Jacob's bell hadn't rung at all! He went to investigate. The other roosters were
chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming,
would run for cover. But to the farmer`s amazement, Jacob had his bell
in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and
walk on to the next one.
The farmer was so proud of Jacob, he entered him in the local Country Fair and Jacob became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was the judges not only awarded Jacob the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.
