Parker Post Office manager John Wikler thought it odd when the same man received 14 roosters in the mail. One should suffice for a henhouse.
Then two boisterous roosters arrived together in crates labeled “World’s Best Fighting Cock” and marked for delivery to the same man.
At that point, Wikler called the Elbert County Sheriff’s Office.
“It was kind of stupid,” Wikler said. “It was almost like advertising something illegal.”
The Sheriff’s Office arrested the man, identified as Mauro Loera, on June 27, Undersheriff Barry Tipton said.
Loera has been charged with cruelty to animals, a felony. If convicted, he faces penalties of up to three years in prison and a $100,000 fine, Tipton said.
The roosters started arriving about five weeks before Loera’s arrest. It’s not unusual for the rural post office to receive crates of chicks for farmers, but it was unprecedented that anyone would order more than one rooster, Wikler said.
And this one customer was getting as many as six roosters at a time, mostly from Southern states, authorities said. When a clerk asked the man why he needed so many roosters, he replied that it was breeding time for chickens, Wikler said.
“I knew better than that,” he said. “There is no chicken breeding season.”
This man’s roosters also seemed unusually feisty, Wikler said. One would crow and the other would respond, filling the post office with a deafening din.
When the crate proclaiming its roosters as the world’s best arrived from Arkansas, Wikler said he knew calling the sheriff was the right thing to do.
Deputies discovered substantial evidence on Loara’s property, including five aggressive roosters, that it was an illegal gaming operation, Tipton said.
The roosters’ wattles and crowns had been surgically removed to prevent blinding by their own blood during combat with other gamecocks, he said.
Syringes and bottles of vitamin B found near their pens indicated the roosters had been injected to enlarge their muscles so they could inflict deeper wounds, Tipton said.
The deputies found eggs with the names of fighting roosters written on them to verify valuable lineages. The roosters’ spurs were fitted with gaffs – metal spikes and razors that they use to stab and gash other roosters, he said.
“There is no other reason to do that to a rooster other than for cockfighting,” Tipton said.
People bet on the cockfights during the underground contests, he said.
Veterinarians from the Colorado Department of Agriculture euthanized the roosters, hens and numerous chicks they found inside Loera’s barn, Tipton said.
Loera could not be reached for comment.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
