Cockfighting: When it's your way of life

[Blue_Tires]

BLACKSTONE -- Rooster crows fill the humid afternoon air as Billy Britton meanders through a field of about two dozen pens holding gamecocks and hens.

Chickens generally live no more than 12 years or so, but Britton's family has maintained some of these birds' bloodlines for more than 100 years.

But after three generations and nearly 45 years of working with chickens, the 56-year-old Britton, president of the Virginia Gamefowl Breeders Association, is scaling back his operations because of a pair of legal punches landed by the U.S. Congress and Virginia General Assembly.

In 2007, Congress passed a law increasing the penalty for transporting animals across state lines for the purposes of fighting from a Class 1 misdemeanor to a felony. The General Assembly passed legislation this year that strengthened penalties for animal fighting and effectively closed the loopholes that allowed Britton and his colleagues to operate.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/179746