Due to the threat of litigation connected to the closure of a Charles City plant, over a million chickens from 14 northern Iowa farms have been euthanized.
Pure Prairie Poultry had contracts with farmers in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin and provided the chicks and their feed until the chickens were ready to be slaughtered and processed at the company’s plant in Charles City. The company abruptly filed for bankruptcy and closed the plant in early October.
The Iowa Department of Agriculture took over the care and feeding of one-point-three million chickens. Court records show Tyson had agreed to buy, process and then sell those chickens, but attorneys for some of the Charles City plant’s creditors threatened to sue for part of Tyson’s profits and Tyson rescinded its offer.
The Iowa Ag Department was unable to find another buyer and, with ever increasing costs to feed and care for the chickens, officials decided to euthanize the birds.
According to Minnesota’s ag department, about 300-thousand chickens being raised there for the owners of the Charles City plant were either processed, given away or euthanized. Wisconsin law did not allow that state’s department of agriculture to intervene, and local news reports indicate most of Pure Prairie’s 170,000 chickens in Wisconsin have been transferred to other owners.
Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, along with Congressman Randy Feenstra are seeking answers from the US Department of Agriculture about what will happen to the $45 Million in federal funding the company received to help smaller processors start or expand operations.
