Chickens

Like dug-in Civil War combatants, California chicken producers knew the enemy was planning to retaliate. They just didn't know when the strike would come. Time often seemed to stand still in the long-running Battle of the Frozen Chicken. In January, the Californians scored a hard-fought regulatory victory at the U.S. Department of Agriculture: the USDA announced that it wanted to prevent out-of-state chicken producers from selling previously frozen chicken as fresh. Nearly three months passed.

Donning a paper biohazard suit and plastic booties, Paul Bahan steps over a thin plastic tape that serves as the last line of defense for the 600,000-plus hens at his AAA Egg Farms. Bahan and other big egg producers in Southern California have put their farms on virtual lockdown, barring visitors, washing down trucks and disinfecting employees to keep their birds safe from exotic Newcastle disease. The deadly virus has led state officials to order the destruction of about 1.

The Hong Kong government announced it will indefinitely halt all chicken imports from China in a move to curb the spread of bird flu, which is believed to have claimed another victim. A government statement said a 60-year-old woman hospitalized with suspected bird flu died of pneumonia, but confirmation was not yet available that she had the bird flu virus.

The "free-range chickens," the chickens that sell for up to three times as much as less active fowl, the chickens that supposedly taste better because of their natural diet and regular jaunts around the barnyard, were not ranging. They were locked inside their houses, dozing, side by side, or hovering together by the feeders. From a distance, no chickens were discernable, only a sea of white feathers, with the red beaks and combs bobbing like buoys.

It may ruffle your feathers, but two naked chickens hatched on a Petaluma farm will never be dressed. Francine Bradley, a poultry adviser at the University of California, Davis, made a special trip to see Jane Gianini's 15-week-old pair of featherless fowl, a male and a female. Gianini was dreaming of making bucks from her two pre-plucked clucks. "Can you imagine?" she said. "You wouldn't have to pluck them."

More than 300,000 chickens on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay were destroyed to stem a fresh outbreak of avian influenza. The flu has infected birds in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey in recent weeks and is threatening the heart of the region's economy. The most recent outbreak -- discovered in Pocomoke City -- was the first on a commercial farm in Maryland, where poultry is responsible for about a third of the state's $1.4-billion-a-year agriculture industry.

Eggs, which many cholesterol-conscious people shun, could possibly help lower cholesterol levels if farmers fed their chickens differently, researchers reported last week. Compared to eggs purchased in U.S. supermarkets, eggs laid by wild Greek chickens had about 10 times the levels of a fatty acid found in fish oil that has been linked to a reduced risk for heart attacks, the researchers found.

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.

Rocky the Range Chicken has been ordered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to become de-ranged, and its owners are squawking. For five years, Bart and Patricia Ehman's Pine Ridge Ranch, perched atop a hill dotted with 60-year-old apple orchards in rural Sonoma County about 65 miles north of San Francisco, has been shipping chickens under the Rocky the Range Chicken label. The Ehmans boast that "Rocky is raised on a vegetarian diet and allowed to run outdoors in a stress-free environment."

Millions of chickens contaminated by bacteria are being shipped to markets because the U.S. inspection system is overloaded, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said. Citing interviews with Department of Agriculture inspectors at the largest poultry plants in the South, the paper said the government seal on packages does not guarantee that the chicken is safe.