Khuk Khi Kai, The Chicken Poop Prison

Chicken poop has a strong and suffocating smell of ammonia that’s hard to stand for more than a few minutes. The odor causes a variety of adverse reaction in humans ranging from vomiting, headache, and irritation to even stress and depression. Ammonia when it enters the body reacts with water to produce ammonium hydroxide, which is very corrosive and causes burning in the nose, throat and respiratory tract. Long-term exposure and inhalation of compounds released by chicken poop is harmful to humans as well as animals.

chickens

Image credit: andrea lehmkuhl/Shutterstock.com

The toxicity of chicken poop was taken advantage of by Abbotsford—a city in British Columbia, Canada. In 2013, in a depraved attempt to drive out homeless people from the streets of Abbotsford, city workers dumped a truck of chicken poop and spread it over a patch of land that homeless people used to camp. The editor of Abbotsford Today wrote a scathing article speaking out against the mayor, describing his “wicked” actions as an act of chemical warfare against homelessness. City officials later apologized for their actions and promised to cleanup the site.

This was not the first time chicken poop was used as a weapon against humans. In 1893, during the French occupation of Thailand, French troops built a small prison cell in Laem Sing, a pretty seaside town in Chanthaburi province. The rectangular structure, made of red bricks, is just over 14 feet long and 23 feet high with two rows of ventilating slits on the sides. The holding cell was located on the ground floor. Above this was a chicken coop. The floor of the coop was perforated that caused bird poop to rain down on the poor prisoners below. The prison was known as Khuk Khi Kai, or “chicken poop prison”.

The French colonist used Khuk Khi Kai to imprison locals who resisted the French occupation. But some historian believe that the story is apocryphal, and that the building was only an observation tower.

Khuk Khi Kai