FORT WALTON BEACH — How many animal control officers does it take to haul two angry roosters out of a cage?

The answer is three — one to crawl into the cage, one to open the door to let out the officer with the bird and a third to hold the crate.

“It seems like the last couple months they’re everywhere,” officer Tracy Saylor of the Panhandle Animal Welfare Society said of the vocal members of the poultry family.

She said some people don’t realize when they get hens and roosters that farm animals are prohibited in many areas. It doesn’t take long for neighbors to start complaining about the noise.

On Wednesday, officers removed two roosters from a makeshift pen behind a home on Carmel Drive in Wright. the house was abandoned, and the owner told his mother he was not coming back for the birds, officers said.

See pictures of the rooster caper. »

Because the pens had been cobbled together with a mixture of chicken wire, chain-link fence, warped boards and rusty nails, officers had to go in carefully after the birds.

The roosters crowed and clucked mightily at the intruders, but were caught without incident.

“These two are very healthy,” Saylor said. “they were well taken care of.”

They were taken to the PAWS shelter on Lovejoy Road. From there, they were to be taken to the agency’s shelter in Laurel Hill that has the room to house farm animals.