ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A busted cockfighting operation in Albuquerque’s South Valley has the Bernalillo County shelter overflowing with adoptable chickens.
“You walk on, and you see rows and rows and rows of caging units, and you know what’s going on,” said Misha Goodman, director of Bernalillo County Animal Care Services.
There are at least 100 chickens ready for adoption, on the heels of another massive hoarding case days earlier.
KOB 4 visited the shelter for a look at how staff is surviving the influx.
“They’re good egg producers. People should come and adopt them,” said Goodman.
Goodman says they have around 100 chickens and roosters up for adoption. They pulled almost 200 of them from an alleged cock fighting operation in the South Valley last week.
“There were a lot of birds on the property and relatively open. So neighbors would have been hearing all these birds. Probably would have been hearing the fighting as well,” said Goodman.
Goodman says the FBI was the lead agency. An FBI spokesperson couldn’t comment on the ongoing investigation, but Goodman says evidence of the operation was obvious.
“Slashers, gaps, training equipment, little boxing gloves that they put on their feet to train them to box with each other and fight each other,” Goodman said. “They had antibiotics on site, surgical equipment to stitch up birds if they needed to, that kind of thing.”
They also took five of the property owner’s 12 dogs, just days after taking in dozens of animals from another hoarding case.
Goodman says the community already stepped up for a lot of those animals.
“We still have some birds left. All the dogs were adopted. The alpacas were adopted. I think the miniature horse was adopted as well, which is just fantastic,” said Goodman.
The shelter ended last week with 443 animals. On Monday morning, they were sitting at around 350.
“We’re still overflowing with animals. I don’t want anybody to think that, ‘Oh, they got 50 adopted, and therefore we’re OK.’ We’re not,” said Goodman.
Meaning they still need the community to step up for animals and eggs this time around.
The shelter director says this is another case proving it’s important to say something when you see something in your neighborhood. You can reach the county’s enforcement line at 468-PETS.
For more information on how to adopt, foster and donate, visit the Bernalillo County Animal Care and Resource Center at 3001 Second St. SW, Albuquerque, NM 87105. You can also visit the county’s website.