The Iowa Division of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) used to be granted an emergency court docket order to take fast care, custody and keep an eye on of about 1.3 million broiler chickens that had been being raised for Natural Prairie Poultry.
The Minnesota-based corporate, which operates a plant in Charles Town, Iowa, previous filed for chapter, and court docket paperwork printed that the corporate has belongings between $50 million and $100 million, however liabilities between $100 million and $500 million with between 200 and 999 collectors.
Natural Prairie Poultry contracts with 14 farms right through Iowa, a press free up from IDALS said, and the company used to be knowledgeable by means of the corporate on September 30 that it now not had the monetary talent to buy feed for the chickens.
IDALS, upon that notification, coordinated with state and federal companies, in addition to trade companions, to hunt a imaginable answer. With no right away to be had answer and mentioning vital attainable animal welfare considerations, IDALS, below its authority in Iowa Code Bankruptcy 717, sought the court docket order to take keep an eye on of the birds. The court docket order used to be issued on October 2.
The company is now operating with the farmers to offer feed and deal with the birds, the click free up said. IDALS will then search repayment of the taxpayers’ prices from accountable events, together with thru imaginable criminal answers.
IDALS has additionally alerted related native legislation enforcement companies of the location.
Natural Prairie Poultry shaped in 2021 after it bought the plant in Charles Town, which used to be prior to now operated by means of Merely Necessities ahead of that corporate closed it in 2019.
The corporate has described itself as an organization that delivers top class high quality rooster merchandise to retail, deli, and foodservice segments. It says its merchandise are “all herbal, air-chilled, and well-trimmed,” and “come from chickens raised below strict animal welfare requirements, with out a antibiotics ever, and fed a vegetable- and grain-based nutrition.”
Natural Prairie Poultry filed for Bankruptcy 11 chapter in U.S. Chapter Courtroom for the District of Minnesota on September 20. On the other hand, that petition has since been brushed aside amid objections from collectors.