CHARLESTON, S.C., March 3 Revenge may be the motive for the killings in South Carolina of more than 300,000 commercial chickens worth about $1.7 million over the past two weeks, authorities said on Monday. 
 
 Birds have been found dead of unnatural causes in 16 chicken houses at six farms that grow chickens for Pilgrims Pride Corp , the largest poultry producer in the United States, which laid off some 60 people right before the killings began, Clarendon County Sheriff Randy Garrett said. 
 
 The company has a processing plant in Sumter, South Carolina. 
 
 About 325,000 chickens have been found dead at the farms since mid-February, Garrett said. One farmer, W.L. Coker, lost the birds in eight chicken houses, or about 160,000 birds, he said. 
 
 Authorities are searching for killers with a deep working knowledge of raising chickens, Garrett said, adding that he believed the deaths of the chickens are related to the layoffs. 
 
 Vandals bypassed alarms systems and raised or lowered temperature in the chicken houses, killing them, Garrett said. 
 
 "Depending on the age of the birds, they knew whether to jack the heat up or jack the heat off," Garrett said. 
 
 Young birds need more heat, and older ones need less, he said. 
 
 "They had all that knowledge of the farms and how many weeks growth the chickens were," Garrett said. 
 
 Garrett said his office has contacted U.S. Department of Agriculture authorities and state police. 
 
 Pilgrim's Pride said in a statement that it was fully cooperating with authorities. 
 
 "These unfortunate, yet apparently deliberate acts show a blatant disregard for the welfare of the chickens and the livelihood of the family farmers involved," the statement said. 
 
 The acts were also condemned by state officials overseeing South Carolina's agriculture industry. 
 
 "Farming presents its own unique challenges without something like this happening," South Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers said in a statement. (Editing by Karen Brooks and Andrew Hay) 

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– South Carolina authorities have a bizarre crime on their hands—involving the deaths of more than 300,000 chickens. The culprit or culprits broke into 16 commercial farms across the state over the last two weeks and killed the birds by manipulating the temperature in the chicken houses, reports the Charlotte Observer. All of the farms supplied birds to Pilgrim's Pride, a massive poultry producer, and a local sheriff thinks the killings are related to recent layoffs by the company, reports Reuters. Whoever did it had knowledge about how the chicken farms operate, says Clarendon County Sheriff Randy Garrett; the suspect or suspects bypassed the alarm systems in order to change the chicken house temperatures. Young chicks need the temperature to be around 95 to 100 degrees; as they get older, that temperature drops to 65 to 70 degrees, the sheriff says. "Depending on the age of the birds, they knew whether to jack the heat up" or turn it down, he says. "They had all that knowledge of the farms and how many weeks growth the chickens were." The alarm systems are set to control the temperature and ventilation and notify farmers via phone if the buildings get too hot or cold, but without the system working, chickens can die in as little as an hour, the sheriff says. "They roasted them," says one farmer who lost 200,000 chickens. "I hate for them to be destroyed like that." The employee who discovered the deaths first noticed steam coming from the chicken houses, and found the inside temperature at 115 degrees. "The heat could have knocked you down," he says. "It takes dirty people to do something like that." Pilgrim's Pride laid off 60 people prior to the killings, which have caused an estimated $1.7 million in losses to the farmers. (Click for another bizarre chicken-related crime.)