Free Chickens

As with all stories it cannot be proven that this actually happened, though I did talk to the person who was the actual real estate agent who was there. But of course you can't know that it is true, but like any important story, it simply doesn't matter.

A Los Angeles real estate company, whose specialty is listing big business properties was fortunate and excited to get a chicken egg production facility as a client. The real estate agent had all the employees tour the facilty to learn a little about the operation.

The agents showed up at the factory and began their tour. Thousands and thousands of chicken cages stretched to the distant ceiling on both sides of the huge building, all the way down each side. In the middle, a conveyor belt fed work stations where egg sorting was being done. From the cages the eggs were delivered automatically to the belt. Sorting boxing and shipping went on continously. The noise and smell were overpowering, but the workers were used to it and nothing stopped the belt as eggs made their march to your breakfast table.

The agent (the lady who told me this story) was talking to the foreman who was explaining the sorting and loading processes and the technical marvel of the egg "factory". He talked to her at length, and being formly a farm girl from North Dakota, she could not help noticing that a number of chickens had obviously escaped their cages and were wandering around under the belt and under the feet of the workers, pecking and scratching. She also noticed that no one paid them much attention.

Finally, she told the foreman, that being a farm girl, that she could probably help round up these escapee chickens.

"Oh no mam," exclaimed the foreman. "Those are our free chickens. They didn't escape, they live out here!"

That didn't seem to be real professional or hygenic to the agent and she said as much to the foreman. He just smiled.

"You see these chickens, mam?" he said, gesturing to the thousands and thousands of chickens lining the walls of the facility. "If these layers in the cages can't see the free chickens pecking and running around and just being chickens, they stop laying. Oh no mam, we got to have our free chickens."

What kind of chicken are you?