Wayne Ford, Athens Banner-Herald

Thu, August 31, 2023 at 1:06 AM PDT·2 min read

https://news.yahoo.com/man-allegedly-endangered-200-000-080630435.html

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A man hired to tend to thousand of chickens at a Madison County farm was arrested recently after authorities alleged he turned off the water supply to the chicken houses in an act that could have killed the birds.

More than 200,000 chickens’ lives were at stake when the disgruntled worker turned off the power, according to Madison County sheriff’s Capt. Jimmy Patton.

“The birds didn’t die because they caught it on time. The service provider got an alert on it, but the birds were in distress,” Patton said about the incident that occurred in early August.

The suspect, Huy Dang Nguyen, 32, was arrested Aug. 21 on charges of felony aggravated cruelty to animals and cruelty to animals. Nguyen had been living on the farm of six large poultry houses off Georgia Highway 191 a few miles north of Comer, but he was arrested at his mother’s home in Dallas in Paulding County, according to the sheriff’s report.

Sheriff’s investigator Chris Guest began looking into the matter after Pilgrim’s Pride and the owners of the farm reported problems with Nguyen.

The owners fired Nguyen and ordered him off the property. Nguyen became upset, but he did leave the property, according to Guest.

However, later a Pilgrim’s Pride supervisor reported he received a signal on his computer that the temperature in the poultry houses was rising significantly, the report notes.

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Pilgrims Pride did not want to send anyone to the farm due to safety issues and the owners as well reported they were fearful of Nguyen.

The owners did check on the houses and found the water supply to all six houses was turned off. The officer reported the water provided not only drinking water, but water for the cooling system to protect the birds from the summer heat.

The owner reported to Guest that if the situation had not been noticed “then the chickens could have easily died due the increasing heat and not being able to consume water.”

The owner reported that the suspect “was mad at him and wanted to kill the chickens.”

Sheriff’s deputies in Paulding County arrested Nguyen on warrants and upon transfer to Madison County, the suspect spoke to Guest telling the investigator that he had a drug problem, but he denied turning the water off.

Pilgrims Pride transferred the chickens to another farm and have suspended the broiler contract with the owners pending an investigation, according to the report.

The owners understood the company’s stance and are being cooperative, according to Guest.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Farm worker charged with felony cruelty at Madison County poultry farm