Transporting live chickens in a freighter

I was on a freighter that was transporting a load of live chickens across the ocean. It wasn’t very fast, so it was going to take months to get to our destination. The chickens came down with some disease, and we had to slaughter them. They were still OK to cook and eat, but we had to freeze them for storage. To make room for the chickens, we had to take all of our food out of the freezers, and put it in crates. We tied ropes to the crates, and put them in the water trailing behind the frieghter. There was no suitable place to tie the ropes, so we had to take turns holding them.