Thorhild, which had shipped poultry for Perdue twice before and had the best package, made the cut. Chickens are between six and seven weeks old when they are slaughtered at Perdue plants in Rockingham County, Shenandoah County, Page County, Harrisonburg, Glen Allen, Emporia and on the Eastern Shore. Most of the poultry grown and processed in Virginia heads to the domestic market. But Virginia exports 71.4 million pounds of poultry a year, according to Hobey Bauhan, president of the Virginia Poultry Federation, a trade association. Virginia's export poultry and birds from Perdue plants in Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and the Carolinas are packed up within 24 hours of slaughter and loaded onto refrigerated 18-wheelers bound for Norfolk.
Forklifts zip into the trucks and take the pallets into the zero-degree warehouse.
The parts are sorted. Every four to six weeks, dockworkers hand-fill cargo holds of the Thorhild with cartons of chicken parts. Under perfect conditions, loading the Thorhild would take five days. But on that Thursday, the third day of stacking boxes, the weather was gloomy. Cardboard boxes of frozen chicken don't do well in the rain.