Animal Rights Groups Call for Charges Against Processor for Abandoning Wisconsin Chickens

By Hope Kirwan

National animal advocacy groups are calling on the Buffalo County district attorney to charge a bankrupt chicken processor over the abandonment of hundreds of thousands of chickens last fall.

More than 475,000 chickens across 11 poultry facilities were left in Wisconsin after Pure Prairie Poultry abruptly shut down its Iowa plant. With no money to continue feeding or to euthanize the birds, the contracted farms in western Wisconsin turned to Facebook and Reddit to give away the chickens to anyone who would take them.

Animal Partisan and Humane Farming Association, two national groups that oppose large-scale animal agriculture, are now calling on Buffalo County District Attorney Tom Bilski to criminally charge the company.