JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Two Jacksonville neighbors quickly went from friends to enemies after one was accused of killing the other's pet rooster.
Yes, you read that correctly. James Nix even ended up spending 30 hours in jail after it all went down in mid-May, Action News Jax reports.
“I didn’t know to give it a 21-gun salute!” Nix said to the media outlet. “CPR, mouth-to-mouth, do you know? Or call the chicken ambulance?”
His neighbor Jason Defelice, owner of the pet rooster, believes Nix killed the animal on purpose.
“I lose them to animals, but I was not expecting to lose them to my neighbor that was like my friend," he said to Action News Jax.
First Coast News explains Nix told deputies the rooster was an aggressive nuisance. Witnesses reportedly said the rooster was a good bird, and no one saw it attacking anyone.
But Nix told Action News Jax it only happened because the rooster was attacking him.
“I’m defending myself, you know. I was fearing for my safety, and the chicken died.”
Nix says he was checking his mail when he heard banging sounds. He then turned around and saw the rooster out in the street.
"I said, ’Oh boy, here we go,’” Nix explained to Action News Jax.
He says shortly thereafter the bird was in his yard with its neck flaring up, according to the CBS affiliate.
“So I pick up a stick in the yard, and I try to hit it," Nix said to the Jacksonville T.V. station. "But the chickens jumping up at me, and I accidentally knocked in the head, you know? Call it a lucky shot, whatever.”
But witnesses said the rooster was in the road and not on the man's property, according to First Coast News. They went on to say Nix reportedly walked down the road and approached the rooster with a steel pole in his hand before striking the bird in the head.
After Defelice came home to a dead rooster, he called the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and then animal control. Nix was arrested following an animal control investigation.
“Next thing you know, he calls the chicken police on me,” Nix said to Action News Jax. “Chickens die every day, people — at Churches, Popeyes, Kentucky Fried Chicken.”