Cockerels

The fact that the chicken ordinance in St Louis doesn’t ban male chickens signals to a time when people understood more about food production and the nature of livestock. They were closer to the source of life.

You aren’t allowed to keep a rooster, which is explicitly a mature male chicken. Anyone who raises chickens now that you cannot prevent boys — even if you order all girls from a hatchery some will skip through.

When they are not fully grown and beginning to show their male traits, they are cockerels. The distinction in the law indicates more understanding than is common today.