How foul must a fowl be to be fouled out?

ShareThis

WEIRTON, W.Va. -- This West Virginia town has something in common with Key West, Fla., and it's not beaches, climate or steel.Both places share a problem with feathered fowl that crow loudly, make big messes and beg the classic question of why they crossed the road.Weirton officials took action last week to resolve a problem with a few dozen to 100 feral chickens in the Kings Creek Bowl area near the city's northern edge.Egged on by some residents, the city council voted unanimously to pay the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services $3,900 to investigate the problem and determine how best to rid the neighborhood of the pesky fowl living along Wall Street.Carol Bannerman, USDA Wildlife Services spokeswoman, said the agency will work with Weirton to try to handle the problem without killing the chickens.For now, noisy, pooping chickens are causing some residents to squawk while others couldn't give a cluck. There remains no clear explanation why free-range chickens chose to reside along Wall Street, but some people say they came from the other side of Kings Creek.John Rosohac -- whose mother Margaret's house has chickens roosting overnight in front-yard trees and pacing through her back yard during the day -- said the chickens originated next door, where a man living in a garage kept chickens outside. When the man went to jail, the chickens turned wild."The chickens have been here nine years, and now there's this big thing about it," Rosohac said, noting city officials have tried numerous times to bring the chickens under control. "To get rid of the chickens, how hard would it be to bring a cage, put feed in it and catch them?"Rosohac said someone recently put out trays of poison that killed 50 chickens, which he buried. He also said his 82-year-old mother was arrested more than a year ago on charges that she was responsible for letting the chickens roam free. Those charges eventually were dismissed.Christina Foley, who lives on Wall Street, said the chickens are threatening her family's well-being. The 23-year-old mother of babies 6 months and 22 months old said besides the noise, feral chickens strut through her yard constantly. Easily chased away, they still leave behind feathers and droppings. She said they also have lice and they lay lots of eggs, the smashed ones of which she finds -- and smells -- in her yard."They stop making noise at dark until 2 or 3 a.m., and at 4 o'clock they are so loud you don't need an alarm clock," she said. After Weirton officials began dealing with the chicken problem in recent years, the city became the butt of jokes, and city officials, feeling henpecked by the ridicule, are reluctant to discuss the matter.Police Chief Bruce Marshall said he had no comment about the chickens. City Manager Gary DuFour said, "We are dealing with this in a humane way, in an orderly fashion."San Juan Bautista, Calif., passed an ordinance in 2006 outlawing the feeding of feral chickens, even though they "contribute to the historical ambiance and small-town atmosphere of the city." And firefighters in High Springs, Fla., shot feral chickens, an action that raised protests about dangerous gunfire and the cleanup left to residents.Then there's Key West, whose poultry problem reduces Weirton's to chicken scratch. In 2004, a chicken catcher was hired to remove about 900 of the island's 2,000 free-roaming chickens and relocate them on a produce farm near Miami where the chickens were used to keep cockroaches and scorpions in check.(E-mail David Templeton at dtempleton(at)post-gazette.com)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)