Words by

grapevine

Nine sheep died last night when a truck carrying two hundred of them to the slaughterhouse got in an accident.
Morgunblaðið reports that the sheep were being transported from the farm Sölvanes in north Iceland when the truck carrying them rounded a curve that resulted in the truck overturning. Local farmers managed to gather the sheep together, but discovered that nine had already died from their injuries. No additional injuries are reported.
If the story sounds familiar, you may be thinking of the perils Icelandic chickens have endured.
There were two accidents earlier this year involving chickens on their way to the slaughterhouse. Last January, the Icelandic Rescue Squad was called out to the scene of an accident in Holtavörðuheiði. While the driver of the vehicle was uninjured, the truck he was driving did skid off the road, overturning a trailer containing thousands of chickens. The chickens scrambled across the wilderness, and the rescue team was obliged to round them all up and get them back in the trailer. From there, they were taken to the slaughterhouse.
Only days later, chickens on their way to the slaughterhouse in Hella ended up in another accident. This time around, the back of a truck carrying many crates of live chickens opened up, and one of the crates slid out, landing on the road. The driver was unaware of the incident until arriving at the slaughterhouse, at which point he and others traveled back down the road to find the chickens.
The crate was found some time later, opened. Few of the chickens left the crate, and while most survived the incident, a few of them had died. The remainder who escaped were rescued, and safely transported to the slaughterhouse.