Stillwell: Saving a chicken from off the highway

Across much of the south and throughout the Ozarks of Missouri and Arkansas, the farmers raise chickens instead of cattle.

The major poultry processors of this great nation will offer farmers a deal whereby they build the chicken houses to their specifications, furnish the young chicks and their feed, then in turn purchase the full grown fryers at the proper time and send a big truck out to pick them up.

It must be a good deal because; chicken houses seem to be everywhere across the countryside.

Back in my broadcasting days I worked on a radio station for a while down U.S. 71 in Springdale, Ark. Upon arriving in this strange new town, I seemed to be having a hard time finding a furnished apartment to rent. One of the disc jockeys at the radio station gave me the name of a mobile home park in nearby Lowell, Ark., where I could most likely find a furnished mobile home to rent.

 That has been some 40 years ago so I don’t remember his name, but the manager of the park was a very warm and friendly fellow and welcomed me with open arms. It was only about a 15-minute drive to work each day so I was quite content.

There were a number of those chicken processing plants in Bentonville, Rogers and the Springdale area and those big flat-bed trucks carrying chickens could be seen running up and down the highway every day with feathers flying in the wind behind them.

The chickens were crammed inside of small crates made with round wooden dowels for the trip and every now and then one of those chickens would wiggle out from between those dowels and come flying off the back of the truck. Wherever that chicken happened to land is where he stayed, meaning, it wouldn’t go running off somewhere like a puppy dog, it would stay right about the same spot. A sick sport among the teenage car crowd in the neighborhood at that time was to run down the poor chickens along the highway.

One day while following a chicken truck on the way home from work, there sat a chicken on the edge of the pavement.

I knew good and well that some jerk would go out of his way to splatter that poor bird just for fun, so I pulled over and stopped. I got out and picked it up and took her home with me and sat it down in the yard just outside the front door of my mobile home. I wasn’t worried about her running off, because chickens are that way, they’ll just hang around.

It wasn’t long before the landlord was knocking on my door asking about the chicken, “What ‘ya gonna do with him, he’d sure make good fried chicken?”

“No!” I said. “I didn’t rescue her from certain death just to bring her home to slaughter and eat. She can just hang around here and eat the yard bugs.” The next day I even stopped by the feed store and picked up some chicken scratch.

Every day the chicken was outside of the door there on the lawn. She would follow me around like a puppy dog and was quite content with her new life, but I continued to worry the landlord.

One day when I came home my chicken was gone, but I didn’t think too much of it until the landlord knocked on my door. “Hey, my wife insisted I come over here and invite you to supper, we are going to have fried chicken.”

I accepted his invitation, but sorry to say, I could not eat any of his fried chicken.



In cooperation with The Examiner, Ted W. Stillwell is available to speak before any club, church, civic, senior, or school groups. These informative and entertaining programs have been well received over the past number of years across Jackson, Cass and Clay counties.



To reach Ted W. Stillwell, send an e-mail to teddystillwell@yahoo.com or call him at 816-252-9909.