Electronic Chickens

Chicken News Round-up

• Thailand has had a lot of trouble selling its chickens on the world market due to a bird flu scare. One way they are trying to offload their surplus is with a guns for poultry deal with Russia, bartering frozen chickens for fighter jets.
• Speaking of that dread disease, the New Scientist reports that cats can spread bird flu. This is very bad news, as the more species to serve as disease vectors, the harder it is to block the spread of an epidemic. Additionally, the Chinese report that H5N1 was found in pigs during 2002. Gee, thanks for the timely heads up.

• The AP reports:
  

  More than 1,000 live chickens fell off a truck early Thursday on their way from a Pennsylvania farm to an upstate New York processing plant.

  At least 100 plastic crates of chickens fell off the tractor-trailer as it rounded a tight curve of Exit 309 off Interstate 80, heading to Marshalls Creek.

  The truck left a trail of chickens, feathers and crates for three miles up Route 209 as the driver continued on his way, not knowing he'd lost part of his load.

• Here's a fascinating article about a flock of wild chickens (supposedly a mixture of Burmese red jungle fowl and Bantams) in the small town of Fitzgerald, Georgia. Best quote:

  [T]he flock offers a tantalizing opportunity for scientists to study the ways of the chicken. The flock may well be unique, [Professor I. Lehr Brisbin Jr, U.Ga.] said; without medical care, it apparently has overcome diseases and parasites that kill off free-ranging chickens everywhere. Safe from predators, the birds are flourishing in something close to a pure chicken society.

  If the residents or poultry industry were willing to pay a stipend of $30,000, a graduate student could "get to know them, live with them, become the Jane Goodall of chickens, and write a thesis"

• The inimitable Mindles H. Dreck discovers a colorful breed of chicken at his county fair. So that's where easter eggs come from!