Ever wonder what that white stuff on bird Poop is, or how you can tell in advance from a chicken's earlobe if it will lay a white or a brown egg?   Maybe not.  But if so, Sondra Wallace has the tour for you. 

Wallace is leading tours at the Southwestern Exposition and  Livestock Show under way in Fort Worth. She specializes in all manner of barnyard trivia.  "This is the chickens," she told folks on a recent tour. "Right below that little piece of feathers is a piece of skin on the side, right here. That is a chicken's earlobe.

"You know the hen that laid the brown egg had a red earlobe," she added. "And when you see the white-shelled eggs it had a white earlobe." 

The Bird Poop Puzzle

Wallace is a 16th generation farmer, and has spent years researching farm animals. She told the ABC affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas that she hopes to help others appreciate the farming industry —  and she proceeded to do so, fact by bizarre fact. "I'll bet you that you guys have said to yourselves, 'What is that white stuff on top of bird poop?'"  she told her tour. "Birds cannot do the function separately. It all comes out at the same time. The white stuff is bird pee on top of bird poop."

"That's very good to know," one woman in attendance said. Wallace's specialty is cattle — a family tradition.

"My great-great-grandfather also led cattle through these barns," she told WFAA-TV.

He won the grand prize for cattle at the show in 1923, but now Sondra Wallace's cattle expertise is the attraction. She rattled off fact after fact.  "If their ears are pointing backward, they're looking behind them," she told the group.  "The more milk a female makes, the thinner she gets on top," she added.   And she kept going.  "They must have a calf to give milk," she said. "Another farming fact — the horns never stop growing and animals that have horns don't have upper teeth."

It seemed to go over well: "A lot of good information you wouldn't get otherwise," one man said. 
Pam Harris, a reporter for the ABC affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas, contributed to this report. 

A four-legged chicken in Saudi Arabia uses only its front two legs to walk, but all four to run.

Poultry farm managers in Damman are sparing it because they think it's a money-spinner.

Potential buyers have inundated the Afnan Poultry Farm.  One person is offering over £4,500 for the 40-day-old bird.  Deputy general manager, Abdul Aziz Khan, told Arab News: 
"Never before have I seen a chicken with four legs."  He adds: "A trader from Riyadh has offered 25,000 Riyals for it."

He's now biding his time, convinced higher bids will appear.  Mr Khan says he's trying to contact research organisations around the world so scientists can examine the chicken.

A German hen famed for laying perfectly round eggs has died.  The hen, nicknamed Berta-Erika, laid 148 such eggs in two years.

Owner Rosalinde Weigelt says the bird died suddenly at her farm in Lieberose.  Berta-Erika was buried in the farm's yard, reports Berliner Zeitung.

The 43-year-old Weigelt says she wants to immortalise the bird and has applied for an entry into the Guinness book of records.  Most of the eggs, which have been compared to ping-pong balls, have been given away to collectors. 

Weigelt also carefully emptied some and covered them with cloth and pearls. They will be used to decorate the family's Christmas tree.

Chicken manure could be used to power cars and other machinery that uses diesel.  A West Virginia scientist says it mixes well with fuel and can reduce diesel costs.  He says it can be liquefied, cooked and sterilised then blended with fuel without significant loss in performance.  Al Stiller says he can't fully explain why the technique works.

The West Virginia University chemical engineering professor says a blend of 65% diesel and 35% chicken waste would cut fuel use and solve the poultry industry's environmental problems.

Chicken farmers have been blamed for fouling streams and rivers with rainwater run-off from the manure.