AJC food editor Ligaya Figueras is in the midst of a poultry dilemma: What to do with her family's chicken, Francois, a beautiful Rhode Island Red who no longer lays eggs? Her apartment complex in Atlanta won't allow chickens, and Francois "has become mean. She pecks when there is no reason, even to the hand that feeds her. I think all her near-death experiences have affected her. I’d be traumatized, too, if I’d been attacked or injured six times."
And yet, "Francois is special. She has survived two dog attacks and two opossum attacks, one that left a couple of her feathered buddies dead in the coop. We’ve had to bring her to safety when hawks of winter eyed her from 20 feet away, and again when she was just five months old and sauntered six houses down the block. When a farmer friend came to slaughter our four-month-old roosters, which you can’t have in St. Louis City, he tried to grab her. “Not Francois!” I cried out. Again, she survived. That makes what, six lives? She’s got a good three more before she transforms into an alley cat."
So what is a food editor to do? Click here to find out more about the great chicken debate.
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