Wisconsin Court Convicts Poultry Company of Animal Mistreatment
Pure Prairie Poultry, a company that left approximately two million chickens stranded across farms in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, has been found guilty of animal mistreatment by a Buffalo County court.
This conviction follows the company’s abrupt closure of its Iowa processing facility in October 2024 after declaring bankruptcy. The company ceased paying for chicken feed and abandoned the collection of birds from farms in the aforementioned states.
District Attorney Tom Bilski of Buffalo County filed 30 counts of animal mistreatment against the company in January. These charges were provoked by the discovery of 30 deceased chickens at Terry and Dawn Filla’s farm, as reported by animal advocacy groups who supported the charges. The chickens were found the day after the contracted producers exhausted their feed supply. More details can be found here.
The company was convicted after a no contest plea was entered, as no representative appeared in court. As a result, Pure Prairie Poultry, which had its assets sold to creditors in bankruptcy last year, was ordered to pay a fine of $13,575. The sale of their assets is documented here.
Attempts to contact the attorney who represented Pure Prairie in the bankruptcy proceedings for comments on this criminal case were unsuccessful.
The judgment has left several Wisconsin farmers with unpaid dues feeling unsatisfied. Dawn Filla, who claims she and her husband are owed $270,000 for unpaid rent and other expenses, expressed her frustration: “I wanted them to pay more. I wanted more consequences.”
Filla and other farm owners had to resort to giving away chickens for free or through donations via Facebook when it became apparent that Pure Prairie would not reclaim them.
Reflecting on the experience, Filla said it remains difficult to digest, particularly because one of the barns was on her property. “To come home and hear the chickens pecking on the inside of that barn, that’s what bothered me,” she recounted, adding that some chickens were found eating their deceased companions.
Lee Frie, of Tri-State Poultry, which provided trucking services to Pure Prairie, expressed skepticism about the penalty being paid, noting that he is owed $2.2 million. Efforts by Frie and other contractors to seek payment through the company’s bankruptcy proceedings have been unfruitful. “Nothing came out of that because they obviously knew what they’re doing and how to go about stealing millions from all of us,” Frie remarked.
Efforts to contact District Attorney Tom Bilski for further comments on the case were unsuccessful as of Wednesday.
