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And that means the time has come to slip on your fluffiest socks, snuggle up next to a crackling fire, and bask in the smoky scent of....chicken? In a partnership with artificial fire log company Enviro-Log, Kentucky Fried Chicken is offering what's sure to be the hottest commodity of the season -- a hunk of flammable, chicken-scented bliss otherwise known as the 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog. You don't even have to go flying out of the front door to get your hands on the bizarre, flaming mass. It's exclusively sold on Walmart.com for a slick $18.99. You will need...

It's not as absurd as it sounds, says Robyn Metcalfe, a food historian who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. A GPS tracker strapped to the leg of a chicken, says Metcalfe, means "that people who potentially will buy that chicken will know every step that that chicken has taken." ZhongAn Online, a Chinese insurance company, has already outfitted more than a 100,000 chickens with trackers. The sensors upload information, such as how much exercise each chicken gets and what it ate. They are also working on facial-recognition technology so that consumers can one day make sure the...

A tunnel that stretches from a former Kentucky Fried Chicken in Arizona all the way to a home in Mexico was discovered last week by investigators, who believe the secret passageway was used for drug smuggling, KSWT reports. Homeland Security Investigations said the tunnel was discovered on August 13, after the owner of the former KFC, Ivan Lopez, was pulled over by the San Luis Police Department. A canine unit alerted officers to two toolboxes in Lopez' truck. Inside the boxes, authorities say they found 118 kilograms of methamphetamine, six grams of cocaine, three kilograms of fentanyl, 13 kilograms of...

Live poultry in backyard flocks are linked to several multistate outbreaks of salmonella infections that have now sickened 212 people in 44 states, federal health officials warned Monday. The most recent illnesses began on June 21, with 88 of the cases reported in the last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, said in an advisory. The federal agency is working with multiple states in investigating several outbreaks of salmonella infections linked to contact with live poultry in backyard flocks, it said. A half-dozen strains of salmonella bacteria have sickened people starting in the middle of February,...

Updated 10 minutes ago A flock of uninvited chickens surrounded Jeff McLaughlin and his three grandsons as they enjoyed lunch at a picnic table at Hempfield's Tastyland. The boys didn't mind. The freeloading fowl were a highlight of their trip. “We love the chickens,” said 6-year-old Liam Bitz. His cousin, Owen Shuey, 7, agreed. “I'm going to go pet one after I finish this fry,” he said. Owen tried to keep his word but the chicken had other plans, leading Owen on an unsuccessful chase around the table, much to the amusement of Owen's twin brother, Ethan. The chickens have...

American families are getting smaller and yet chickens are getting larger. As we begin 2017, Americans can look back at 2016 as yet another year with record-high chicken consumption—an average of 89.6 pounds per person. That’s more than three times as much as our grandparents ate. Chickens we eat today are twice as big as they were 60 years ago. In 1955, the average weight of chickens sold on market was 3.07 pounds, while the number for the first half of 2016 was 6.18 pounds, according to National Chicken Council, a nonprofit trade organization based in Washington, D.C.

The entire month of May is International Respect for Chickens Month! Please do an ACTION for chickens on or around May 4. Ideas include leafleting on a busy street corner, holding an office party or classroom celebration, writing a letter to the editor, doing a radio call-in.... (interrupted by my cackling and chortling)

What's next -- clean air?After all the factory farming industry has done for us, it's shameful that people can't show a little more gratitude. Thanks to massive industrial complexes where cows, chickens, and pigs spend their artificially short lives in dire confinement, ankle deep in their own poo and kept alive on a diet of corn syrup and trash, we have regular access to affordable meats and eggs that are very nearly edible most of the time! And how do consumers say thank you to these brave souls? They start growing their own chickens. And eggs. In their own backyards....

Although past research has suggested Tyrannosaurus rex was related to chickens, now findings hint this giant predator might have acted chicken too. Instead of picking on dinosaurs its own size, researchers now suggest T. rex was a baby killer that liked to swallow defenseless prey whole. Fossil evidence of attacks of tyrannosaurs or similar gargantuan "theropods" on triceratops and duck-billed dinosaurs has been uncovered before, conjuring images of titanic clashes.

Penguins "Fed Up" With Media Attention Angry penguin named "Pete" seen rushing toward arriving scientists and ordering them to return home. (Penguin Island, Antarctica) With public interest in Antarctic penguins at an all-time high, it now appears that future scientific research into the habits of these fascinating creatures could be threatened by legal troubles. The first team of penguin researchers of the 2006 season were met by a single representative of the "Darwin" brood who rushed the startled scientists, yelling "Get out! We are fed up with you foreigners spying on us every year!". With the flip of a flipper,...

After a bruising campaign last fall, Californians voted by a 27-point margin in favor of what was billed as an effective ban on cages for egg-laying hens. The Humane Society of the United States, which sponsored the measure, may have won that battle. But the war over Proposition 2, it seems, is just getting started. The egg industry says the proposition might allow it to use cages, and wants an interpretation from the state to support that idea. The Humane Society isn't budging. It says voters meant to enact a ban on cages, and that's what they should get. Meanwhile,...

Obama Fried Chicken' Under Fire Posted 1 week ago, 0 replies A well established Brooklyn restaurant has changed its name to "Obama Fried Chicken," offending many and even catching the attention of New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The mayor encouraged the owners to find a "more appropriate" name for the eatery.   Along the blocks of Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood, hundreds of storefront restaurants compete for the commerce of the city's pedestrians. When the restaurant Royal Fried Chicken on Rutland Road switched its name to Obama Fried Chicken last week, the local reaction was immediate. According to the Associated Press,...

Wisconsin author Michael Perry has a book called "Truck: A Love Story." I decided to write a story and title it "Chickens: Not a Love Story." Let's start at the beginning of this non-love story. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? On our farm, it was a little of each. Sometimes they arrived as little chicks in a box and other times they popped out of eggs. I was searching my overcrowded memory bank, trying to remember where we got our baby chicks. I was pretty sure we bought them from Storbakken's in Westby. They had a grocery...

   International Respect for Chickens Day, May 4, celebrates the devotion of hens to their chicks and deplores the suffering of motherless chickens on factory farms. In this photo, Ruby fosters Ivy, a chick rescued from a factory farm in North Carolina to live in a safe and loving home. (PRNewsFoto/United Poultry Concerns)MACHIPONGO, VA UNITED STATES May is International Respect for Chickens Month MACHIPONGO, Va., April 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- InternationalRespect for Chickens Day, May 4, celebrates the dignity, beauty and life ofchickens and protests against the bleakness of their lives in farmingoperations. Launched by United Poultry Concerns in 2005,...

Friday is International Respect for Chickens Day Every so often a press release comes scratching at the door and just CROWS for your attention. Why did this press release cross the road? To stick up for chickens! MACHIPONGO, Va., May 1, PRNewswire — United Poultry Concerns is pleased to announce our Third Annual International Respect for Chickens Day, May 4. We urge everyone to do an ACTION of compassion for chickens that day — from writing a letter to the editor to tabling at a local mall to showing the movie Chicken Run to going vegan — for life. What...

Attention Washington DC Area Residents & Others Join UPC at the University of Maryland May 4 and Takoma Park May 8 On International Respect for Chickens Day, UPC will leaflet on behalf of chickens in front of McKeldon Library at the University of Maryland, College Park on Wednesday, May 4 from Noon – 2 PM. Brochures and posters will be provided along with our banner proclaiming INTERNATIONAL RESPECT FOR CHICKENS DAY - A DAY TO CELEBRATE CHICKENS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. Please join us in front of the library! On Sunday, May 8, we will leaflet in the Takoma Park Town...

Activist Demands Respect for Chickens (CNSNews.com) - A woman dedicated to the "compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl" has declared May 4 "International Respect for Chickens Day." Karen Davis, the founder and president of United Poultry Concerns, describes May 4 as a day to "celebrate the dignity, beauty and life of chickens and to protest against the bleakness of their lives in farming operations." "Chickens are lively birds who have been torn from the leafy world in which they evolved. We want chickens to be restored to their green world and not be eaten," Davis said in a press...