HUBBARD TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Approximately 200 chickens were rescued after spilling out of a truck in northeastern Ohio on Friday night, authorities said.
According to the Hubbard Township Police Department, about 22 crates of the birds fell out of the vehicle at about 11 p.m. EDT, WKBN-TV reported.
“There’s a first time for everything,” Jason Cooke, president and founder of Healthy Hearts and Paws, wrote on Facebook. “Trumbull County 911 Dispatch contacted me this evening about chickens running loose on (highway) 62.
“And sure enough, there were chickens, crates and feathers all over the place right getting on the interstate.”
According to a video that Cooke posted on social media, it took about three hours to clear the road, WFMJ-TV reported. Only one of the birds died as a result of the crash, according to the television station. Cooke later said in a Facebook video that the chickens were underfed and underweight, and that “a few” had to be euthanized, WFMJ reported.
The truck left the scene without stopping, Cooke said.
The surviving birds were taken to Healthy Hearts and Paws, Cooke wrote in a Facebook post.
Cooke is hoping to find good homes for the chickens.
“We are a dog shelter, a cat shelter -- we aren’t set up for chickens, but we have to do what we have to do, because it’s 11:30 at night, there’s nobody that’s going to take them,” Cooke told WKBN. “Hopefully, there’s people out there that want to help these chickens, because this is their lucky day. I’m pretty sure they were headed to slaughter.”