Tic-tac-toe chickens missing from fair

Posted: Thursday, May 24, 2001

BENSALEM, Pa. - It could be a case of foul play for three chickens that travel the country's state-fair circuit playing tic-tac-toe against humans at 25 cents a game.

Tic, Tac and Toe - "educated poultry" whose owners say have never been beaten by a human - have been missing for a week and a half after they were apparently removed from their cages at the Pennsylvania Fair in Philadelphia.

"We haven't seen so much as a feather of them," says owner and trainer Steve Boger, who also trains racing pigs and helps run the family's traveling petting zoo.

The chickens draw long lines of visitors who want to face off with a chicken over tic-tac-toe. The chicken always starts the game. Boger won't reveal the secret to training tic-tac-toe birds, though he says it takes several months and includes a special diet.

"I've seen a chicken beat somebody 25 games in a row," Boger says. "If chickens can laugh, they really think this is funny."

The second-string replacement chickens have an equally perfect record as their missing predecessors - no losses, though sometimes they tie - but are slightly slower.

"I can't say they're not as good, since I can't even tie them," says fair spokeswoman Carole Morganti. "They are just not as fast. My 12-year-old daughter has tied them."

The Bogers, who have a farm in Springdale, Ark., travel to fairs with their animals about 10 months out of the year. At last year's Pennsylvania Fair, the Bogers lost a piglet, but it was returned to the local humane society a few days later.

Since the three light-brown chickens disappeared, the fair has received more than a dozen calls with tips and chicken sightings, Morganti says. Among them was a person reporting that her neighbor had a suspicious number of chickens in his back yard and a high school where several chickens were released in the hall as a prank.

"I don't know why chickens are all of sudden running around the area," Morganti says. "Evidently there are chickens all over and I just never heard about it."

Boger has urged the community to search for chickens reading the newspaper - "They're pretty smart," he says - or playing games.

Asked if the intelligent fowl could have opened the cages themselves and made a run for it, Boger is doubtful:

"They're not Houdini," Boger says, "they're just Tic, Tac, Toe."