Sounds like a tilt switch or a thermometer was bagged with the chicken.
Subsonix
But who uses mercury thermometers any more? All the food-related places I've worked in use stainless steel bi-metal spring thermometers. Wouldn't the mercury "ball" be a mercury puddle, unless it was still frozen? Honestly, I've only seen one mercury anything in a long, long time. The thermostat in my old house (circa 1985) had a mercury tube switch. I suspect the thermostat was "borrowed" from somewhere that was older. The previous owners did lots of odd things in that place, like putting a square frame on a octagon window, which wasn't level and looked really out of place. Somewhere they managed to find a 60" tall top freezer fridge. Every other fridge that style I've ever run into was about 68" tall. Maybe they were midgets, come to think of it, other things like the vanity, some light switches, electrical outlets, in the house were shorter or lower than normal.
