Friday, October 12, 2012

Chicken Little Was Right...!

You all know the story...where Chicken Little runs around telling everyone that the sky was falling! Seems like he might have been right after all!

I've heard some pretty strange stories as of late, but this one ranks right up there with the best! Guess the Aliens have moved on from cow mutilations to chicken mutilations. I can't help but wonder what will be next!

It's raining chicken
By Carol Vaughn, The (Salisbury, Md.) Daily TimesShare

10:27AM EST October 10. 2012 - ASSAWOMAN, Va. -- A teen's horseback riding lesson ended abruptly after a foot-long hunk of raw chicken that fell out of a cloudless sky hit her in the head.

Fortunately, what hit Cassie Bernard last week was the smallest of three or more poultry parts that rained down as owner Jennifer Cording was giving a lesson to a group of advanced students while several parents looked on.

"Three objects fell out of the sky in front of us, two larger and one quite small," Cording said.

Bernard, who was not injured, was wearing a riding helmet when the chicken hit her. Protecting a rider from unidentified flying chicken parts is not the helmet's normal function, but it did the trick.

Officials from a nearby Tyson Foods Inc. processing plant denied that the flying chicken parts originated there. No matter what brand of chicken fell, a scientist later said high-flying seagulls probably were involved.

A Virginia Department of Environmental Quality official said the agency will investigate.

Land Protection Manager Milton Johnston of the department's Tidewater office said the parts more likely came from improperly composted dead chickens being spread on a nearby farm. Staffers at the regional office with more than a quarter century's tenure said they have not encountered a similar complaint.

"We can't have pieces of chicken falling out of the sky," Johnston said.

Everybody at the farm looked up to see where the strange objects came from, but the clear blue sky didn't hold any clues.

"It was kind of odd; it made me think about the movie back in the 1980s, The Gods Must be Crazy," said Bruce Penland, who was at the farm. The comedy recounts the strange chain of events that occurs after a soda bottle falls from the sky and lands among a primitive tribe in the Kalahari Desert.

Avian expert Bryan D. Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary, said high-flying gulls likely are to blame.

"I doubt it would be vultures because they don't typically carry things and they don't regurgitate in the air. … It's more likely gulls, which we know carry chicken parts," Watts said.

When scientists from the center monitored gull colonies in seaside marshes on the Eastern Shore of Virginia in the past they encountered "a lot of chicken bones" coming from the area, he said.

Cording's farm is located between those marshes and a poultry-processing facility in Temperanceville, Va., about 3 miles to the west as the crow, or gull, flies.

Watts said while the parts pose no threat, "the concern it brings up is the parts are supposed to be disposed of or covered. They are not supposed to be available to scavengers."

Tyson Foods Inc. spokesman Worth Sparkman said the company doesn't know where the parts came from.

"When we transport by-products, our trucks are loaded inside (and) are covered with tarps," Sparkman said, adding trailers carrying byproducts are unloaded in covered areas and each is washed after it is emptied.

Cording called an early end to the lesson after the bizarre incident, followed within the next half hour by one of her steadiest horses running away with a rider and another horse crashing through a jump.

"It was one of those things around here that gives us something to talk about," said Cording, adding, "It was a weird night."

It's pretty warm outside, so we will have our coffee on the patio. I think some biscuits and sausage are in order!

10 comments:

Momlady said...

Living in a poultry producing area I wonder how chickens escape from the chicken trucks since every once in a while you see one wandering along the side of the road totally, and I mean totally, lost.

Phyllis (N/W Jersey) said...

Funny story. I raise chickens and I always enjoy stories about them. I would guess that scavengers dropped them while flying away. I bet it was an awesome sight to see!
Coffee, sausage and biscuits sound fine - it's chilly here at 34 degrees.

Dizzy-Dick said...

The horses seemed to know what was going on and got the "H" out of Dodge.

Anonymous said...

Mebbe one of those frozen chicken cannons that test windshields was in the vicinity. Quick - someone call Sarah Brady - there oughta be a law agin' that! Just how many people have to be hit in the head with frozen chickens before we do something about it . ..

linda m said...

That is just too funny - falling chicken parts. Look out Goosey Lucy and Turkey Lurky - the sky is falling. Have a great weekend.

JO said...

To funny. Crows are also very smart and can figure out things quick.

Coffee, sausage an biscuits! yumm

Maybe I can get my porch cleaned off before it gets to cold t use it.

Sixbears said...

So that's why they wear riding helmets -falling chicken parts. Makes perfect sense.

HermitJim said...

Hey Momlady...
Chickens can get out of some pretty tight places sometimes, but off the truck? I have no idea!

Thanks for coming over today!


Hey Phyllis...
Guess the seagull theory is as good as any!

Still...there must be some way we can blame it on the Aliens!

Bring some cooler weather our way, OK? Thanks for coming over today!


Hey Dizzy...
Sounds to me like the horses knew that they didn't have helmets and acted accordingly!

Pretty smart animals!

Thanks, buddy, for coming by today!


Hey Anon 7:23...
This would certainly be another one that would be nice to find the answer to.

Gotta love it when every day there are new things like this that pop up!

Many thanks for coming over today!


Hey Linda...
There is a certain amount of humor in the whole thing, isn't there?

You have a warm weekend as well and thanks for dropping by today!


Hey Jo...
Crows are a lot of fun to watch! I never knew that they washed their food before they ate!

I threw some bread out for them and they would take a piece, carry it over to the birdbath, drop it in and then eat it when it got soft! Pretty smart!

Thanks, sweetie, for dropping by today!


Hey Sixbears...
Guess know we know the rest of the story!

Don't leave home without a helmet, I reckon!

Thanks, my friend, for coming by today!

Anonymous said...

This is just so fun :-) :-) :-) Well there is of course something wrong happening when chicken parts are falling from the sky but still so fun :-)

Have a great day!
Christer.

HermitJim said...

Hey Christer...
I think it's great to have some fun once in a while! If I can make folks smile a bit, then I feel good, ya know?

Thanks. my friend, for coming over today!