70,000 Chickens Die After Drunk Man Cuts Power to Coop
A man in Maryland was too intoxicated to realize that he had inadvertently turned off the power to three chicken houses, killing nearly 70,000 chickens.
The man responsible, identified as Joshua D. Shelton, 21, of Delmar, Md., was found by police passed out on the floor of the power control shed, wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts, sheriff's officials said.
"This subject was also lying in a pool of his own urine. A strong odor of alcohol was also coming from the subject," Wicomico County sheriff's Lt. Tim Robinson said in a press release.
"Shelton advised the last thing he remembered was being on the property after a nearby concert but did not know how he ended up in the shed. The deputy surmised that in his intoxicated state, Shelton turned off the circuit breakers that controlled the electricity to the chicken houses," Robinson said.
The owner of the chickens said that he made the horrible discovery on Saturday morning. He explained to police that the chickens would start to die within 15 minutes without power.
The birds were scheduled to be delivered to a local processing plant and were valued at $20,000.
It was revealed that Shelton had been at the owner's property previously with a group of people that included the owner's daughter, sheriff's Chief Deputy Gary Baker said.
"The daughter thought he left, but instead he wandered into the shed where all the power controls and breakers were and turned it off," Baker told NBCNews.com. "Quite frankly, he was probably in a condition where he really didn't know what he was doing," he added.
Bill Satterfield, executive director of Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., a local trade group, said he was shocked to hear the news of the poultry disaster.
"I have never heard of a drunkard going in and killing chickens," he told DelmarvaNow.com. "This is a new one on me, and it's unfortunate that it occurred."
Shelton was arrested on charges of second-degree burglary, trespass and malicious destruction of property.
