Chickens

Jen Lynch and her family live in the heart of the city but roll out of bed to the sound of clucking chickens. Their day starts with cleaning coops, scooping out feed and hunting for eggs for morning omelets. Eight families in a three-block radius and an estimated 150 families citywide do the same. "It's our slice of rural life, minus the barns," said Jen Lynch, 35, as Flicka the chicken pecked at her backyard lawn.

Four years ago, Andrew Meeks literally bet the farm on chickens. Now he fears he made a losing bet. His three massive chicken houses are empty, and a "For Sale" sign has sprouted out front. Meeks, a contract chicken farmer, borrowed nearly half a million dollars to refurbish his 25-acre farm, putting up as collateral his home, the farm and virtually everything else he owns. But the company that provided his chickens and paid him to raise the birds canceled his contract.

Seeking to buy eggs produced in a more humane way, McDonald's Corp. said Thursday that it would undertake a large-scale study involving tens of thousands of hens. But the Humane Society of the United States said the study probably would delay any significant move by McDonald's into the U.S. cage-free egg market -- a step some of its rivals have taken. Most eggs produced in the U.S.

They are noisy, they drag down property values and disrupt the peace in neighborhoods, and they can carry deadly illnesses. And they sometimes associate with criminals, through no choice of their own. Not to mention the havoc they wreak on sweet early morning slumber. Pity the poor rooster, in some regions decried as public enemy No. 1.

Quoting the pope and Roman Catholic teachings, the nation's largest animal-rights group has accused a Trappist monastery in South Carolina of raising hens for its egg business in an inhumane manner. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA -- which secretly videotaped the hens -- demanded Wednesday that the state attorney general and agricultural officials investigate Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, S.C.

Federal officials put a hold on 20 million chickens raised for market because their feed was mixed with pet food containing an industrial chemical. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are trying to determine whether the chickens pose a threat to human health if eaten, USDA spokesman Keith Williams said. Officials would not say which states the chickens were in.

Farmers will be allowed to sell 20 million chickens being held on farms that may have received feed contaminated with the chemical melamine, suspected in a rash of pet deaths, the Agriculture Department said Monday. The department said there was no need to quarantine livestock on farms where melamine or related compounds could not be detected in animal feed, perhaps because it made up only a small share of the feed. A USDA spokesman said 20 million chickens were in that category.

Seeking to reassure people that chicken is safe to eat, companies that raise chickens said Thursday that they would test every flock for bird flu before the birds are slaughtered. Companies that account for more than 90% of the nearly 10 billion chickens produced in 2005 in the U.S. have signed up for the testing program and said more were expected to follow, according to the National Chicken Council, a trade group that represents producers.

In an ongoing campaign to unfetter the caged hen, the Humane Society of the United States plans to file a lawsuit in California today challenging a partial sales tax break for agricultural producers who purchase cages that animal welfare activists consider cruel and torturous.

If you're a chicken, this picturesque little burg is close to paradise. You and a few hundred pals have the run of downtown, strutting down sidewalks and across streets without fear of winding up fricasseed. Kindly locals buy sacks of feed for you, diners at outdoor restaurants throw scraps to you and camera-toting tourists ooh-and-aah all over you.