Fly-over blamed for mass chicken deaths!
COTES-D'ARMOR, France - August 30, 2010 - A French farmer is demanding compensation for 4,800 chickens apparently killed by fright when two jet fighters flew overhead.
Autopsies of several of the birds revealed they were alive before the planes flew over Tuesday, Radio France Internationale reported.
"If we hadn't been there, it would have been worse," Etienne Le Mehaute, a chicken farmer in Cotes-d'Armor, Brittany, told the Ouest France newspaper.
He and his family, who were eating lunch at the time, rushed to the coops after the military aircraft flew past, "causing vibrations in our backs, it was so loud," Le Mehaute said.
The terrified chickens, which were 10 months old, had all rushed to one side of the building where they were kept. Nearly 5,000 suffocated when they stood on top of one another in several layers.
The farmer, who is in charge of 68,000 fowl belonging to an agricultural cooperative, is demanding 12,000 to 15,000 euros ($16,500-$19,000) in compensation.
French air traffic control confirms two military planes flew over the area at a height permitted by regulations. The Defense Ministry said it was not yet convinced of any connection between the flights and the deaths.
