Odisha : In a rare and tragic incident, about 60 broiler chickens in a poultry farm died due to loud music that was playing from a nearby bridegroom party in Odisha.

Poultry farm owner Ranjit Parida in the complaint with Nilagiri police claimed that his chickens died of suspected heart attacks brought on by the blaring music played by the DJ at his neighbour Ramachandra Parida’s wedding procession on Sunday.

At about 11 pm on Sunday, the bridegroom party from the nearby village of Maitapur arrived at my village with the DJ music playing loudly. The bridegroom party also blasted high-intensity firecrackers. As the sound was too to bear for about 2000 broiler chickens on my farm, I requested people in the marriage procession to lower the volume. However, they all seemed to be drunk and verbally abused me. The terrified chickens in my farm started running around in fear and an hour later I found 63 chickens dead,” Ranjit told.

He then checked with a local veterinarian, who diagnosed that the loud noise had caused the birds to go into shock, killing them. He said the family of the bridegroom the next morning about the death of poultry birds, but they refused to compensate. “I lost around 180 kg of chicken due to the loud sound as the birds probably died of shock,” said Ranjit.

Ranjit, 22, an engineering graduate who was unable to find a job, started his broiler farm after taking a loan of Rs 2 lakh from a cooperative bank in Nilagiri in 2019.