I live outside of a small town that is outside of the Orlando area. The downtown area (which looks like your typical Smalltown, USA, with a main street, a couple of churches, small shops and narrow streets) is inhabited by several of the town’s mascots. An assortment of chickens and a couple of roosters live in the shrubs and small trees lining the parking lot that serves the post office, the hardware store, the bank, and a couple of restaurants. The chickens really do hang out around the chicken-chain restaurant. I think they’re there to protest the cows and to make people feel guilty for eating chicken.
I visited the town library today, and was greeted by this fellow’s hearty cock-a-doodle-doo. I think he was looking for his buddies. The library is a good quarter-mile or more from the usual chicken hang-out.
Bumper stickers that read “I brake for the Oviedo chickens” are still visible on cars around the area. In fact, the city municipal code makes it a crime to cause harm to these fowl.
Sec. 10-1. City designated a bird sanctuary.
(a) The entire area now embraced by the corporate limits is hereby designated as a bird sanctuary. Adequate signs shall be erected and maintained at entrances to the city, within the discretion of the city council, signifying the designation of the area within the corporate limits as a bird sanctuary.(b) It shall be unlawful to hunt, kill, maim or trap, to hunt with a slingshot or gun or attempt, in any manner, to shoot or otherwise molest birds or any wildfowl; to rob or otherwise molest the nests of birds nesting or located within the corporate limits.
Those signs that used to greet incoming motorists warning them to watch for the chickens have mysteriously vanished.
The local bank’s website even contains a history of the chickens in town, dating them back to 1875. If you come to visit the chickens, don’t come empty-handed. Just chickenfeed will do.
