Nothing to crow about: It is illegal to keep barnyard animals in the City of Miami, but that doesn’t stop our fellow residents from keeping thousands of chickens and roosters that wander our palm-shaded streets.

Many of these yardbirds are used in santeria rites, and the city even has a special detail to clean the chicken carcasses and other ritual matter off the courthouse steps early each morning. Such rituals are intended to influence the outcome of court cases, for instance, Tio Sanchez’s speeding ticket or Abuela Gonzalez’s citation for keeping a pit bull in Miami-Dade County.

In certain areas of Miami, the concentration of chickens that wander neighborhood streets is alarming. Since April 2003, a joint team of firefighters, code enforcement officers, and NET personnel has dedicated time (once a month) to ridding neighborhoods of these chickens. They are known collectively as the Chicken Busters.

Because of the ongoing operation, we Miamians have come to realize that loose chickens are a greater problem than we previously thought, with captured chickens numbering in the thousands. Captured birds are sold to farms in Homestead and the proceeds go to local charities.

The most frequent response (in English, Spanish and Creole) when people are confronted by a Chicken Buster regarding a chicken wandering on their property is — and I am not making this up — “What chicken?”

Since April 2003, the Chicken Busters have caught 6,427 fowl, generating $10,650 in revenue from chicken sales.

Thanks to KRB for the stats.