President William McKinley owned a very well-known parrot named Washington Post. But Washington Post wasn’t his only bird – he also owned several roosters.
While many sources cite the existence of these roosters, just how many roosters lived at the White House and for how long is lost to history.
The rooster indirectly played a small part in McKinley’s political life. There was a cartoon depicting Senator Orville Platt and President McKinley offering a deplumed rooster to the Cuban people, who respond: “But friend William, what do you want me to do with that rooster after having been so cruelly mutilated by you and your buddy Platt?” This is of course in reference to the biggest issue of McKinley’s career, the Spanish-American war. At the time, many Cubans were less than enamored of the United States’ control, which had been recently won from Spain.