1.3 million chickens killed in Iowa over lawsuit threat

Pure Prairie Poultry couldn’t afford to feed its chickens

The state’s agriculture officials recently killed nearly 1.3 million broiler chickens because they couldn’t find buyers, court records show.

Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Management I took responsibility for the birds — housed on 13 farms in northwest Iowa — after their Minnesota owner, Pure Prairie Poultry, said a month ago it couldn’t afford to feed them.

The company filed for bankruptcy last month, citing debt worth $100 million to $500 million, according to federal court records. He was operating at a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars a week and could not get a loan to stay afloat.

The company has a chicken processing plant in Charles City that it reopened with the help of a $7 million federal grant and a $39 million loan backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This aid was announced nearly two years ago and was expected to create around 400 jobs. was there ribbon cutting ceremony On site in July.

But the state agriculture department said Pure Prairie Poultry closed the plant and laid off its workers on Oct. 2. That same day, a judge granted the department’s urgent request to take responsibility for the animals.

The ministry provided food, monitored the health of the birds, and hired someone to take over the overall management of the birds. He also sought a buyer for the birds and even considered giving them away for free, but those efforts were thwarted by threats of lawsuits.

Court records show that Tyson Foods emerged as the only poultry processor willing to purchase the birds. He planned to process the chickens over a period of five or six weeks, usually on Saturdays when the birds are not slaughtered. The company agreed to pay 50 cents per bird.

However, some of Pure Prairie Poultry’s creditors indicated that they might seek some of the profits Tyson made from the birds in court, and Tyson rescinded its offer.

When there were no buyers, the agriculture department asked the judge to authorize the “depopulation” of the chickens.

“While the Department believes depopulation should always be a last resort, it adds certainty to this unfortunate situation, limits ever-escalating costs to Iowa taxpayers, and prevents potential animal welfare issues,” the department said in a statement Friday. he said.

The department did not specify what method it used to kill the chickens, but the incident occurred over about a week and ended Friday. It was estimated that at least $1.5 million would be spent feeding and housing the birds and then culling the flocks.

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