How it feels to be attacked by a rooster

Ever wonder how it actually feels to be the target of a rooster? I didn’t give it much thought, actually, until it happened to me.

So, what’s it like?

Well, the first thing was, I was surprised! I had no warning that the big guy was about to come at me. I was just collecting the eggs at the end of the day, when I hear a squawk and felt something pierce my leg. This leads us to the next feeling:
Pain! I felt searing pain in my calf at the site of the pecking. It felt like my calf was on fire. I had heard in the past that if a rooster is coming at you, you should advance toward him. So, with a “never let ’em see you sweat” bravado, I advanced. Unfortunately, so did the rooster (please note: rooster’s bravado was not false). Score another peck for the rooster.
Next, anger starts to creep in. At this point, I didn’t know how badly I was hurt. I was trying hard to hold it together so that my daughter, who was on the other side of the (closed) coop door yelling, “Mom! Mom! Are you all right??”, would not freak out. But hey, this rooster was big! and was not backing off! I decided that a well-timed scream of “Get away from me!!” at the offender was in order at this point, as I made for the door and managed to get out without him following me. This time I exhibited some well delivered, effective bravado for the purpose of relieving my daughter of her fear about my well-being.
Finally, time for my fear. How bad were the wounds? Puncture wounds from farm animals seemed to me to be a likely source of virulent infection. I reasoned that since it was my own farm animal, however, I had less to worry about than I might have had it been a wandering, vagabond rooster (I also began to second guess my artless, not quite factual affirmation of a tetanus booster “within the last 5 years” to the ER nurse last month where I went to have a foreign object removed from my eye). Well, it actually didn’t look too bad, thank goodness, which led to the final emotion:
Relief. No ER trips today; home treatment is all that is needed. After a good old-fashioned washing with soap and water, ice and arnica would do the trick. Three days of observation for symptoms of infection were also indicated, which I did, and there were (fortunately) none.