Thursday, February 12, 2009

Farmers Face Empty-Nest Syndrome Amid Chicken Housing Crisis

From the Wall Street Journal:
Like many Americans, Darris and Sarah Dixon are struggling with mortgage payments and trying to avoid bankruptcy.

But the home the Dixons live in isn't the problem. The problem is their three chicken houses, on which they owe nearly $500,000.

"There's no way we'll make the chicken house payments," Mr. Dixon says from his farm abutting the Ozark Mountains.

A chicken housing crisis has cropped up in the U.S., and it's producing some of the same bleak results as the human one -- foreclosures, lawsuits and devastated homeowners....MORE