By Tim Binnall
A man in China is headed to prison after being busted for scaring over 1,000 of his neighbor's chickens to death. The bizarre case reportedly began last year in the county of Hengyang when the perpetrator of the poultry massacre, identified in Chinese media by his surname Gu, became embroiled in a bitter feud with a chicken farmer, identified as Zhong, who lives next door to him. Their previously peaceful coexistence was shattered when Gu cut down some trees on Zhong's property without his permission. When the chicken farmer rightfully claimed the downed trees, Gu, who presumably had plans for the wood, became enraged and set about enacting his rather strange revenge.
Armed with a flashlight, Gu crept onto his neighbor's farm late one evening and proceeded to terrify the chickens by unexpectedly illuminating them, which caused the animals to crowd into a corner, where a whopping 460 of them died. Although he was arrested for the odd attack and ordered to pay Zhong approximately $430 in damages, this only escalated the tensions between the two men. To that end, amazingly, the mass chicken killer actually struck again shortly thereafter and, this time around, took down a staggering 640 of the birds using the same dastardly technique.
When on trial for the second case of property damage, Gu showed no remorse for his actions and, as such, the judge handed down a stiff penalty for the poultry killer. The man was not only ordered to compensate Zhong for the second slew of lost chickens, which were valued at around $1,600, but also sentenced to serve six months in jail for the audacious crime. It remains to be seen whether or not the time behinds bars will cause Gu to regret his role in the feud, though one imagines that the embarrassment at having to explain to fellow inmates why he is in prison just might do the trick.