Judge me not for being a female cock fighter. Don't get upset, no one is fighting or hurting animals, this is only a story about my experiences. Cockfighting is a bloody sport between two gamecocks which are held in cockpits, arenas, backyards, and barns. Outside of an arena it's called a scratch fight. Cock fighting has been going on for over six thousand years. The first documentations using the word gamecock, referring to it as entertainment or a sport was in 1607 and 1634.
Documentation of the first witnessing of a cock fight was in 1521 in the kingdom of Taytay. Game birds are not gamecocks. Gamecocks are bred specifically to fight another gamecock and are conditioned, trained, prepared, and sparred for increased speed, stamina and strength for battle.
Many years ago when my husband, me and thousands of other cock fighters were fighting cocks before there was an American Game fowl Society nor Old English Game club standards for cutting off the cock's wattles, combs and earlobes. We're mountain people who's been arena and scratch fighting for many years and know what we're doing. We cut gamecock's combs, wattles and earlobes very close to prevent frost bite in the Northern winters.
Another reason we do this is so that the other bird can not get hold of my cock's comb, wattle or earlobe making the fight unfair. In our days we got gamecock magazines underground, but now they're available in the cyber world online. Their nature is to be aggressive, hate and want to fight to kill any animal or human, but mostly other gamecocks.
They have to be handled and conditioned for long periods of time for humans to be able to handle and control them. I exercised and conditioned each of mine for a year before battle. During this time they get pampered, carried around and eat cracked oyster shells, cracked and whole corn and vitamins.
A lot of men placed wagers and bet on me because I had the best of breeds and was being backed and trained by three men who were well known for being the best in the business. This is a bloody sport because one cock has to either die or go home bloody and almost dead.
Cock's has long sharp spurs mother nature gave them and we saw these half way off even to attach metal spurs which are called steel or gaffs which are attached to leather bracelets. Knife gaffs are illegal. There are places in the world where it's legal and regulated by law, but in the good ole' USA it's illegal, period. Gamecocks can not be eaten even if boiled for hours they're too tough so they're a useless species other than for fighting.
There is always only two owners with their gamecock in each cockpit. There is four pits besides the main pit. When a fight times out and the gamecocks are still alive and going at it they have to move on to the next pit till one either dies or the fight is called by an owner. This means his gamecock is messed up and probably will die anyway so he's forfeiting the fight.
The sport of fighting gamecocks is ancient and was enthusiastically popular in many countries. If the gamecock is not properly conditioned he could turn on the owner and injure or even kill their handler. Some handlers just sharpen the natural spurs and fight naked without gaffs. We mostly fight during winters because gamecocks are molting during warm months. In arenas your gamecock is usually matched with a gamecock of equal weight or close.
