“The Saga of the Dead Chicken”

Have you ever found a dead chicken in the road?  Even in the country, on rural South Carolina roads, rarely, if ever, does one encounter a dead chicken.  It is common to see dead dogs, dead feral hogs, dead possums, and dead skunks, but rarely a dead chicken.

This chicken, a layer hen, orange-red, with beautiful feathers, black on their tips, was run over on the small country road where I live because someone put her out on the road, along with seven other layer hens.  Apparently, this someone was too lazy, too poor, or too mean to keep these chickens.  When hens are in their prime, they will lay eggs most days, but not every day.  Depending on the quality of the mash (feed) which they are given, they may produce eggs for a long season.  After a time, however, they stop laying eggs and their body rests from their labors of egg laying.

The purpose of laying eggs, for a chicken, is to raise prodigy and hens may sit on up to 15 eggs at a time.  Presuming they are fertilized by a rooster, after an incubation of days, the small “dibbies” as they are often called will hatch.  Immediately attaching to their mother, they will follow her religiously until they are mature enough to be on their own.  If there is no rooster, the laying hens will still lay eggs for a time, then they will stop laying.

Some say, after an appropriate rest with the right “mash,” the dormant hen will lay eggs again, at least sporadically.

In the case of most persons who have laying hens, the mature hens are allowed to enjoy the rest of their life, scratching in the yard, eating insects, bugs and worms, sometimes ants until they gain a certain stature of maturity.  Often the mature and plump laying hens make a fine dinner when company comes over. 

It is surprising for anyone who has chickens to simply dump them out on the road.  Our road, Massey, by name has a long, lonely stretch in which persons dump most anything they do not want.  The Trash Police are kept busy as those of us on this road regularly call for an investigational study of a trash bag lying intact on the side of the road.  The fine is $1120 if the person is identified.  It is quite interesting that many persons dump trash with bank receipts, speeding tickets or other identifiers which the Trash police use to identify the person(s) who dumped the trash.  This often happens on Wednesdays, the only day during the week which the trash convenience center, about 1000 feet from the end of Massey road, on the Pickens highway is closed.  Too lazy to take their trash back home, they leave it conveniently for pickup on the side of Massey Road.  I suppose it is worth $1120 to leave trash when the convenience center is closed, but I would not pay this myself.

Each county in South Carolina has set up convenience centers where citizens and non-citizens can dump their trash.  No one ever asks for any identification of any kind.  There are places for household trash, cardboard, limbs of trees, glass bottles, aluminum cans, batteries, old furniture including mattresses and electronics.  There is even a place to leave old motor oil.  It only takes a few minutes to ride through, place the trash items in the appropriate place and drive away.  It is wonderful and convenient, with no fees, paid for by South Carolina taxes.  I like it, the attendants are always nice and helpful.  Who would not want to use such a convenient place to leave all kinds of trash, much of which is recycled into new products for the economy.  And I have a place to leave my household trash of all kinds.

There is no downside to the use of the convenience center.  It helps keep out community clean of unwanted trash!

So, what does this have to do with one dead chicken?  Luckily there were not more dead chickens.  My neighbor caught four, which are now in her barn.  My daughter caught two, which are happily enjoying living in our garden.  The other hen is still at large.  She has so far proven to be uncatchable, running back into the woods at the first sign of trouble.  She has been enjoying the chicken feed and water our neighbor placed out by the side of the pine forest, so the wayward hen does not starve.

I inquired once of the Trash Policeman why he thought that perfectly intelligent American citizens throw out their trash, including live chickens by the side of the road.  Oh, the beer cans, the small liquor bottles, the left-over Styrofoam boxes of partially eaten meals I have collected over the past two years!   The kind gentlemen said he normally does not find criminal intent but instead laziness.  Persons are simply too lazy to take their trash to the convenience center, which is set up in every county in South Carolina. This gentle policeman should know as he brings persons to trial regularly for littering.

I had suspected on the dumped beer cans a man under stress from work, riding home drinking a beer (which is illegal in South Carolina), wants to get rid of the evidence from (not the police, but his wife), so he throws out the beer can as he eats a box of deltoid candies to hide the odor of alcohol.  I had imagined a malicious warning to those who police the road of trash when a dead cat was placed strategically in the very place the trash bag was taken by the Trash Police.  I had suspected real anger when the local meth dealer drives by and gives me the finger after I cleaned the road of trash one Saturday morning.  I pray regularly for persons as these.

It is the mystery of this one dead chicken that saddens me the most.  If the person did not want the chickens, why not try and find them a good home?  There are many who are wanting chickens these days.  Someone surely would have taken them.  There are persons like my neighbor and my daughter who truly care about stray animals and will do their very best to find an abandoned domesticated creature a suitable home.  Wild creatures are always left in the wild forest.

So, the answer to why there was a dead chicken, a laying hen, lying in the ditch on my way out Massey Road while going to work is that there is no answer.  When laziness, meanness, or no money to buy feed for non-productive hens, we will never know.  It disturbs me to a deep enough level for me to write this article about it.

I police about 1000 feet of road between my home and the intersection of Pickens Highway.  My neighbors on the Pickens highway have taken to mowing that other side of the highway and picking up trash as I have been doing.  Doing a good deed is catching.  My neighbor who caught 4 of the chickens does her portion of the highway, too.  We pick up the trash before the large mower of the county comes and shreds it, making a real mess.  The lieutenant governor of South Carolina, Pamela S. Evette of Traveler’s Rest, has made cleaning up the highways a major priority of her office.  I am glad she is doing this and I support her on this initiative.

I do not feel that dumping live chickens on the highway is an acceptable way for a citizen to represent the great state of South Carolina.

As for me, I will still be picking up trash on my highway for as long as I am able to do so.  I hope other citizens of our state will do the same! These are our roads, our highways, which belong to we the people. Why would anyone in their sane, right mind dump trash on their own property?

A Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, as strange as it my sound, I enjoy cleaning your earth.  Whether the area in front of my home, or recycling to save the environment, or using cleaner fuel, or only electricity to travel, I pray that I may do my part to save our planet.  Friends of the earth can also be friends of God.  In the great day of judgment found in the Revelation of John, God says that he is coming “to destroy those who destroy the earth.”  (The Revelation of John, chapter 11, verse 18).  Lord Jesus, I am not sure what you mean to say by this verse, but I am praying for all and everyone who throw trash by the side of the road, even live chickens and ask you to forgive them for this sin against the earth.   In your mercy, find and show us your mercy, grant us your grace and your truth.  Hear the prayer we make together, show us the way to save our planet, whether picking up someone’s else’s trash or leaning how to capture methane and C02.  We ask simply that you may help us.

We pray today in the strong and mighty name of Jesus our Lord.

Amen and Amen.”

We praise you Lord Jesus Christ and we glorify your holy name!

“Amen!”

Bill Wilson, MD, servant of God by God’s grace and mercies.