Two houses in Fletcher, near Newcastle, New South Wales, have been struck by falling chickens. In each case the birds struck with sufficient impact to break roof tiles, suggesting that they may have been frozen, or have fallen from a considerable height. Police have no leads and are pleading for information. ('Sydney Morning Herald' report, 10/2/05).

This makes an interesting change from crocodiles, sharks, spiders and other wildlife dangers in Australia. My own theory is that an evil scientist has succeeded in crossing chickens with eagles, or possibly drop-bears, or both.

Now really Neil, is this true? LOL.

I have cringed reading the post about all the insects and other wildlife in OZ but really - falling chickens????

Are you sure it isn't a case of you Aussies just having one beer to many?

Maybe you and the Mrs. need to leave sooner then you planned to and come here to California.

Yep true story except Neil forgot to say that the chickens were actually plucked chickens.

Hey, I just report the news that's fit to print. But Paul's right, they appear to have been plucked. This probably explains why they weren't flying too well.

LoveItaly, let me get this straight - if I go to California I can get away from weird stuff?

We heard about this on our local news here in Miami.

Maybe KFC was making a delivery and one got away?

OOOH that's Fowl

;-)

Uuuummmmh, gosh Neil I didn't mean you will get away from weird stuff in California, But (this is real good news) so far we haven't had any falling chickens!!!

But then again, maybe compared to some of the weird and strange people and ideas we have in California being struck by falling chickens is not really all that bad. Especially if the chickens were in fact plucked.

And,reconsidering all of this, isn't this chicken problem a blessing? Home delivery of the main course for dinner!

Elementary, my dear Watson. One of the victims has a Chinese name; the Chinese New Year is being celebrated; and the Year of the Rooster has just kicked off.

That doesn't help explain the other target, who I think has an Irish name. Maybe he was the accidental victim of a test firing.

One 'Herald' reader thinks that the answer may be found by looking up "potato gun" on the WWW. I'd quibble with his suggestion for 100mm sewer pipe (surely too tight a fit), but the barbecue lighter and can of ignition fluid make sense.

Heh heh heh - I used to have a potato gun many, many years ago! We could fire a Idaho spud through a 3/4 inch sheet of plywood at 20 meters!

The neighbors behind us didn't appreciate it though when (after a Saturday afternoon of drinking and general mischief) we missed our target and hit their car. If memory serves me right, we destroyed the gun shortly thereafter. I still have my giant slingshot though. Whenever the people around the corner have parties until 3 & 4 in the morning, a few well place water balloons seems to quiet things down

Neil - maybe it was the Irish guy had the potato gun. I've heard the Irish have a lot of experience with potatoes!

Well, thankfully Neil's cleaned up this mystery for me!

I was listening to the radio the other day and only caught the end of the report, so I only got the fact it had something to do with frozen chickens in Australia....the commentator was relating the great episode of the old WKRP show where the radio station decided to drop live turkeys for a Thanksgiving promotion and Les Nesmin saying "As God is my witness I thought turkeys could FLY!"

Melodie

Mucky!

A win over the Poms - and then the Italians!!! What are they putting in the water in Wales?

<apologies - small rugby aside!>

There's another report of an errant chicken this morning - still in Newcastle, but about 15km from the earlier sightings / landings. Dem frozen chickens don't seem to fly that well!

Hi Margo,
And England lost too !
The Frozen French Cockerel landed on England lol
What a great weekend.

Muck

On the chicken subject, a couple was snagged at Cairns airport the other day for attempting to bring in 2kg of chicken toes. Not feet, toes. Apparently as part of year of rooster New Year festivities.

This site is always capable of soooo many laughs!!!

Thanks again - for that I'll do a chicken dance.

LOL

JohnInMiami - sorry, just caught up with your posts. Your spud gun sounds like the real McCoy. I'm reminded of my schooldays, when we thought it was the height of sophisticated humour to jam a spud into the exhaust pipe of a particularly unpopular teacher's car. But of course that was just designed to prevent him starting it and it had no explosive effect (we had to wait for the chemistry class for that).

I'd be very interested in your giant slingshot design. I already have a neighbour in my sights.

If this is what happens in the Year of the Rooster, I will avoid that vicinity in the Year of the Pig or God Forbid, the Year of the Horse!!

Neil, am I sure I want to visit Australia? Here in Florida, when they throw chickens at each other, they are usually alive and therefore sort of soft ~gt;

Matilda,

I was also remembering the great WKRP episode of the turkey drop. One of the biggest laughs on TV. Just imagine it....of course the folks in New South Wales don't have to.

I don't know why Australians have taken so long to figure this out. Forget Year of the Rooster.

Haven't you heard there is a shortage of storks and chickens are now deliving babies. After a five-pound chicken delivers a 7 lb. baby, it doesn't take much imagination to know that it will be exhausted, collapse and die.

Just do the stats between chickens dropping from the sky and number of babies born in the same period.

Neil - email me ([email protected]) and I'll send you the website link where you can order the giant slingshot.

It takes three people to operate - two to hold the sides and one to launch. It's best though if you have a couple of trees about 2 meters apart to tie the ends to. The trees don't wobble when you launch, allowing your aim to be much better!

In our (un)scientific tests, we've been able to send a balloon containing 1/2 liter of water about 250 meters! Since the loud neighbors are only about 75 meters from us, we can fire the balloon with a high trajectory, making it seem (to the recipient) like the balloon is coming straight down out of the sky!

- Why did the chicken cross the road?

- To break the roof of Neil's attick.

Aren't we all happy the cows can't fly?