By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

WHEATON, Mo. — Poultry houses are a common sight around Wheaton, a town that would not prosper as well as it does without the poultry industry.

All of the major poultry companies — George’s, Simmons and Tyson — are doing business near this town of 721 people. The counties of Newton, McDonald and Barry meet at a point just west of Wheaton.

Then why is the construction of yet another poultry house on the north side of Wheaton causing such a headache? Why is a poultry farmer among those to oppose this new operation?

“We were here first, and they are shoving it down our throats,’’ said Lowell McInturff, who will live downwind of the 850-foot-long breeder/egg house. “We have lived here for 25 years. It’s not like we just moved here and decided to complain about someone’s chicken house.’’

His wife, Twyla, who can have severe allergic reactions to chemicals, said she cannot understand how such a large poultry house can be constructed so close to several existing farm houses.

“People will be living on nearly every side of this chicken house,’’ she said. “There are other chicken houses around here, but none are this close to us.’’

The McInturffs are not alone in their opposition to the chicken house, which they say will lower their property values and have a negative impact on their health. Their neighbors, Charles and Shirley Tichenor, Doug and Deanna Hughes, and Joseph and Tempest Cooper, also have voiced opposition to the proximity of the chicken house and have joined forces with the McInturffs.

For the Tichenors, it is especially problematic since they are poultry farmers. They are contract growers for George’s. Their broiler chicken houses were built away from their house and their neighbor’s houses “because we know how important it is to be good neighbors,” said Charles Tichenor. “We live in this community.”

Cheri Church and her husband, Wesley, are putting in the poultry house. She said, “The man (Tichenor) who is complaining the most has six poultry houses. There are so many poultry houses around here that if you were to throw a rock you could not miss a poultry house.’’

Church declined to offer any other comments about the dispute with her neighbors.

Her new poultry house will be 191 yards north of the Tichenor house, 162 yards from a house on the west side, 254 yards south of the McInturff house and 296 yards southwest of the Cooper house.

The chicken house, an $800,000 venture, is being constructed on the Churches’ farm, which they bought about two years ago. The Churches put their house up for sale several months ago, their neighbors said, but it did not sell. It was after that that they decided to build the chicken house, which will be 181 yards north of their home, the neighbors say.

The Churches approached Simmons. The company agreed to the project, though the company’s Web site says it will not construct a chicken house within 1,200 feet of an existing chicken house. An exception apparently was made for the Churches: the Tichenor chicken houses are approximately 960 feet east of the location of the new chicken house.