Pondering Chickens

Driving to Wilmington a few weeks ago, my normally boring ride was punctuated by the most bizarre sort of roadkill. I wasn't sure it was roadkill at all, at first. It looked like a white furry teddy bear had been mauled on the side of the road, or as if perhaps an pillow had been gutted and its innards badly beaten and then run over by a few dozen passing vehicles. This one horribly abused pillow/stuffed animal object was multiplied and scattered at random intervals along Highway 74 - there must have been three or four within a 40-mile stretch. With each new sighting, I had more questions, including but not limited to: "What the hell is that?", "Who would carry that thing in their car?", "Who would throw that thing out of their car?", and "Is that a duck?"

My guess of duck wasn't too far off, actually. Forty-five minutes later, I overtook the roadkill-spewing culprit: an 18-wheeler stuffed with live chickens. They hadn't been childrens toys or home furnishings: they were poultry. All of the chickens were (quite tightly, as it appeared to me) locked in their respective cages (these are not the farmers from whom I purchase eggs!). How, I wondered, did they manage to escape their little mesh jails? What must that look like, to be driving behind a chicken truck and see poultry go flying out the side? Were they alive when they escaped? How many chickens are lost in transport each month, each trip? Do some die just from the terrible trauma of the wind rushing past at 70mph? If they arrive dead, are they processed and sold anyway? Do I really want to know the answer to that last one?

Seriously. How many chickens does one lose in transport?