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Fowl Play: Northeast High students arrive to find 85 chickens roaming halls
IT STARTED OUT as the most fowl school prank in Philadelphia history.
But now it's just plain foul.
That's because even after 85 frightened, displaced Rhode Island reds were wrangled out of the hallways of Northeast High School, there is something left behind:
Chicken poop — and lots of it.
Enough, in fact, to require a Health Department inspection to clear Northeast High to reopen today for its 3,600 students.
Last night, school-district spokesman Fernando Gallard said that "we've been given the all-clear" by the Health Department, and that the school was set to reopen early this morning.
"All the ruffled feathers have been smoothed out," Gallard said.
He said that school maintenance workers had swabbed down the hallways with a cleaning solution of bleach and water to disinfect the areas, where roaming hens spent Sunday night and early Monday morning.
The raucous all-hen slumber party — there were no roosters in the bunch — may have been the work of four people seen on a surveillance-camera videotape near the front entrance of the school at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday, police and school-district officials said.
Some students said they think it was a Senior Class prank, because this year's graduating class is the school's 167th and the numbers 167 were found inside the school.
The chickens were found when a building engineer opened the school at 5 a.m. yesterday, Gallard said.
The 85 hens were running up and down hallways from the basement to the first and second floors of the three-story building, at Cottman and Algon avenues, in Rhawnhurst.
By the time most students arrived at school about 7:30 a.m., the chickens had been rounded up, said student Bernard Cephas, a junior.
He said all he saw was a lot of chicken feed still on the floor when he arrived.
But 16-year-old Yardleye, a sophomore who always gets to school early — she arrived at 6:40 a.m. — said that as soon as she walked through the metal detectors, she saw a man walking down the hallway carrying a chicken.
"I was wondering why he had a chicken in his hands, and I said, 'OK, that's something new,'" said Yardleye, who did not want to give her last name.
Her friend Traci Benson, 16, a junior, said that girls were immediately sent to the auditorium and boys were sent to the gym before the students were dismissed from school for the day so that the building could be cleaned.
Gallard said that the chickens were rounded up with the help of staffers from the Fox Chase Farm, a demonstration farm managed by the Swenson Arts and Technology High School on Red Lion Road. Swenson teaches vocational classes in agricultural industries and environmental sciences.
Gallard said that the farm staff brought in crates and advised school maintenance workers to turn off all the lights.
"They turned off all the lights and the hens stopped running," Gallard said.
People who work with chickens think the prank must have been shocking to the hens.
"If the chickens were placed in a situation like that, it would be pretty stressful," said Peggy, from the McMurray Hatchery, in Webster City, Iowa.
"If they were hens, they would stop laying eggs completely until they were able to get out of there," said Peggy, who also asked that her last name not be used.
Britne, another chicken breeder from McMurray, said that "stress causes them [chickens] to not want to eat or drink, and then that causes them sometimes to start violently pecking at one another and ripping each other's feathers out."
The school district's Gallard said that there had been a rumor floating around that a teacher had found at least one egg at the school.
But he said that he had heard nothing about feathers being spread all over the floors or any other violent pecking.
By early afternoon yesterday, Gallard said that the hens from Northeast High were being kept loose in a horse trailer at Fox Chase Farm with plenty of hay on the floor.
He said that because district officials don't know where the hens came from, they are being kept quarantined away from the chickens thatare kept at the farm.
He said that state agricultural department inspectors were expected to examine the hens today.
"They're happy and safe and, from what I hear, they're all laying eggs," Gallard said. *
Staff writer Christine Olley contributed to this report.
But now it's just plain foul.
That's because even after 85 frightened, displaced Rhode Island reds were wrangled out of the hallways of Northeast High School, there is something left behind:
Chicken poop — and lots of it.
Enough, in fact, to require a Health Department inspection to clear Northeast High to reopen today for its 3,600 students.
Last night, school-district spokesman Fernando Gallard said that "we've been given the all-clear" by the Health Department, and that the school was set to reopen early this morning.
"All the ruffled feathers have been smoothed out," Gallard said.
He said that school maintenance workers had swabbed down the hallways with a cleaning solution of bleach and water to disinfect the areas, where roaming hens spent Sunday night and early Monday morning.
The raucous all-hen slumber party — there were no roosters in the bunch — may have been the work of four people seen on a surveillance-camera videotape near the front entrance of the school at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday, police and school-district officials said.
Some students said they think it was a Senior Class prank, because this year's graduating class is the school's 167th and the numbers 167 were found inside the school.
The chickens were found when a building engineer opened the school at 5 a.m. yesterday, Gallard said.
The 85 hens were running up and down hallways from the basement to the first and second floors of the three-story building, at Cottman and Algon avenues, in Rhawnhurst.
By the time most students arrived at school about 7:30 a.m., the chickens had been rounded up, said student Bernard Cephas, a junior.
He said all he saw was a lot of chicken feed still on the floor when he arrived.
But 16-year-old Yardleye, a sophomore who always gets to school early — she arrived at 6:40 a.m. — said that as soon as she walked through the metal detectors, she saw a man walking down the hallway carrying a chicken.
"I was wondering why he had a chicken in his hands, and I said, 'OK, that's something new,'" said Yardleye, who did not want to give her last name.
Her friend Traci Benson, 16, a junior, said that girls were immediately sent to the auditorium and boys were sent to the gym before the students were dismissed from school for the day so that the building could be cleaned.
Gallard said that the chickens were rounded up with the help of staffers from the Fox Chase Farm, a demonstration farm managed by the Swenson Arts and Technology High School on Red Lion Road. Swenson teaches vocational classes in agricultural industries and environmental sciences.
Gallard said that the farm staff brought in crates and advised school maintenance workers to turn off all the lights.
"They turned off all the lights and the hens stopped running," Gallard said.
People who work with chickens think the prank must have been shocking to the hens.
"If the chickens were placed in a situation like that, it would be pretty stressful," said Peggy, from the McMurray Hatchery, in Webster City, Iowa.
"If they were hens, they would stop laying eggs completely until they were able to get out of there," said Peggy, who also asked that her last name not be used.
Britne, another chicken breeder from McMurray, said that "stress causes them [chickens] to not want to eat or drink, and then that causes them sometimes to start violently pecking at one another and ripping each other's feathers out."
The school district's Gallard said that there had been a rumor floating around that a teacher had found at least one egg at the school.
But he said that he had heard nothing about feathers being spread all over the floors or any other violent pecking.
By early afternoon yesterday, Gallard said that the hens from Northeast High were being kept loose in a horse trailer at Fox Chase Farm with plenty of hay on the floor.
He said that because district officials don't know where the hens came from, they are being kept quarantined away from the chickens thatare kept at the farm.
He said that state agricultural department inspectors were expected to examine the hens today.
"They're happy and safe and, from what I hear, they're all laying eggs," Gallard said. *
Staff writer Christine Olley contributed to this report.
