Whoa!
Barn Fire Kills More Than 11,000 Chickens
August 12, 2005
DARLINGTON, Fla. -- More than 11,000 chickens and roosters were killed in a barn fire or later had to be euthanized because of their injuries in this Panhandle community near the Florida-Alabama border.
Firefighters from five rural departments arrived to find countless dead birds in the barn, said Ron Prokop, chief of the Darlington-Gaskin Volunteer Fire Department. About 200 fowl managed to escape through a ventilation shaft but suffered blindness or smoke inhalation.
"They had to destroy the whole lot," Prokop said Thursday.
The birds were being raised at the Wendell Mitchem farm north of DeFuniak Springs to produce eggs for a Perdue Farms Inc. hatchery in Samson, Ala. Perdue put their value at $80,000 and the fire caused $55,000 in damage to equipment, Prokop said.
An equipment malfunction was the suspected cause but an investigation was continuing.
Perdue Farms, based in Salisbury, Md., closed its 392-employee processing plant in DeFuniak Springs last year but kept contracts with more than 100 chicken farmers in the area.
Barn Fire Kills More Than 11,000 Chickens
August 12, 2005
DARLINGTON, Fla. -- More than 11,000 chickens and roosters were killed in a barn fire or later had to be euthanized because of their injuries in this Panhandle community near the Florida-Alabama border.
Firefighters from five rural departments arrived to find countless dead birds in the barn, said Ron Prokop, chief of the Darlington-Gaskin Volunteer Fire Department. About 200 fowl managed to escape through a ventilation shaft but suffered blindness or smoke inhalation.
"They had to destroy the whole lot," Prokop said Thursday.
The birds were being raised at the Wendell Mitchem farm north of DeFuniak Springs to produce eggs for a Perdue Farms Inc. hatchery in Samson, Ala. Perdue put their value at $80,000 and the fire caused $55,000 in damage to equipment, Prokop said.
An equipment malfunction was the suspected cause but an investigation was continuing.
Perdue Farms, based in Salisbury, Md., closed its 392-employee processing plant in DeFuniak Springs last year but kept contracts with more than 100 chicken farmers in the area.
