Student charged with animal cruelty after biting chicken's head off

ORANGE CITY, Fla. (FOX 35 WOFL) - A 17-year-old University High School student has been charged with animal cruelty and trespassing after deputies say decapitated a live chicken from the school’s coop.

“It’s disturbing very disturbing,” said Beth Bechir of Enterprise. “To kill an animal, a live animal and it’s sad that the kids worked very hard,”

Bechir donated the chickens to the culinary students at University High School who were raising them.  on Saturday they held a farm to table fundraiser for the community, but deputies say later that night a student at the school snuck into the chicken coop and bit off the  head of a live chicken.

"Everybody put a lot of hours and a lot of work into it, they were getting hand trained by these kids,” Bechir said

Deputies say the chicken’s headless body was discovered in the University High School parking lot by a teacher Monday morning,

“They went into an agricultural program, the farm to table and for basically no other reason, bit the chicken’s head off and kept the head in the mouth, and then wanted to see how the chicken died, I mean it’s pretty sadistic if you think of it,” said Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood.

The chicken’s head was found in the chicken coop and its eggs thrown against the building, a school resource officer identified a 17-year-old student as the suspect who confessed to biting its head off. 

“He went and bragged about what he had done and then several students went and informed the school,” Chitwood said.

According to the arrest report when deputies asked the student why he did it, he said he has “violent outbursts.”

Other students could also face charges connected to the crime.