Over half a billion chickens are produced on the Delmarva Peninsula every year in hundreds of "houses" like these under contracts with local growers. Most growers are under contract to corporations, which own the birds and dictate critical management terms, including housing requirements for large poultry barns, but most contracts stipulate that the growers own the manure and dead birds. This attempt to shift all responsibility for manure management leaves many family farms short of resources for proper waste disposal.