Chickens and Liquor Just Don't Mix

Raising four boys and taking care of a farm south of Crab Orchard, Illinois with my grandfather are reason enough for my grandmother - Mary Morris - to throw up her hands in frustration. The three oldest boys alone - my dad Dennis being the worst - wereenough to keep Grandma worn out as they grew up.
Growing up, my dad and two of his brothers were constantly up to some type of mischief or mayhem. Most boys are constantly into trouble - but the Morris boys took trouble to a new level. Actually, they made it an art form.
Once, Grandma was cleaning out the basement and found some jars of grape juice that had been stored away so long that they had become fermented. She instructed Dad and my uncle Rodger to pour the grape juice out somewhere away from the house.
Being the "obedient" boys they were though, they decided to have some fun with the juice - which was now grape wine. They stashed the jars in a place where Grandma wouldn't find them and began a daily routine of spiking the watering troughs of Grandma's chickens.
The top of the chicken pen was covered with chicken wire and Dad said he and Uncle Rodger would hoot and holler at the chickens in an effort to startle them and push them into action. It seemed that liquor would bring out delusions of grandeur in those birds and they would try to fly straight up - only to bounce off of the chicken wire and back down to the ground - where they could not walk a straight line. Or touch their wing to their beak for that matter.
Up until a few years ago, Grandma still didn't know what Dad and Uncle Rodger had done.
She said she remembered when those chickens acted so strange. At that time, she couldn't figure out what was wrong with them and why they couldn't walk straight or sit on their roosts without falling off. Those chickens went awhile wihtout laying any eggs and Grandma had no idea they were drunk!