Animal Partisan and Humane Farming Association seek criminal charges against Pure Prairie Poultry for starving chickens and abandoning farmers
June 24, 2025
By Sylvie Boucher, Communications and Fund Development Associate
Animal Partisan’s legal advocacy is fiercely dedicated to holding corporations accountable for cruelty inflicted on farmed animals. Today, in partnership with the Humane Farming Association, Animal Partisan has taken action against Pure Prairie Poultry (PPP) by filing a legal complaint seeking 30 criminal charges and a $300,000 monetary penalty. The goal: to hold PPP criminally liable for depriving thousands of chickens of feed and abandoning them to starve after attempting to file for bankruptcy in another grim example of industrial animal agriculture’s innumerable harms to people and animals.
Driven solely by profit, industrial animal agriculture treats both animals and farmers as mere commodities without any semblance of empathy or acknowledgement of the suffering inflicted. The story of PPP is but another example of this troubling reality.
While the poultry industry often presents a benevolent "family farm" facade, history reveals a disturbing pattern of corporations misleading and abandoning contract growers, especially if the corporation files for bankruptcy. PPP’s abandonment of contract growers is not the first time something like this has happened. A strikingly similar situation unfolded in Arkansas recently, where thirteen farmers filed a lawsuit against Cooks Venture after the company suddenly ceased operating due to financial difficulties. The farmers alleged that Cooks Venture executives lured them into incurring substantial debt and adapting their farms and homes under the pretense of an innovative, sustainable poultry enterprise. However, the complaint states that executives leveraged the company to flood the market with below-cost product and undercut rivals, then abruptly filed for bankruptcy, which left growers in crippling debt and piled bodies of hundreds of thousands of chickens killed with a suffocating chemical foam by Arkansas officials at Cooks Venture’s request.
PPP operated on a similar contract model, maintaining ownership of broiler chickens raised by third-party local farmers across Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. According to the terms of the agreement, PPP was exclusively responsible for delivering, providing, and paying for food, catching and transporting chickens for slaughter, and reimbursing utility costs. Animal Partisan and the Humane Farming Association’s complaint relies on the personal experiences of a pair of Wisconsin farmers who fell victim to PPP’s financial mismanagement.
After nearly two years under contract, the farmers observed signs of financial instability: changing bonus payments, unpaid utility reimbursements, and a missed pickup date for a flock of 24,000 chickens on September 17, 2024. Unbeknownst to them, PPP had recently filed for bankruptcy. A week later, the bankruptcy was dismissed, and PPP's president and CEO admitted to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture that the company couldn't pay its feed mills or deliver feed. The local farmers were not notified of this crucial information
On September 28, 2024, 11 days after their scheduled pickup and without any official notification, the Wisconsin farmers ran out of feed for the chickens, something that PPP was required to provide under the terms of the contract. Contractually barred from purchasing feed themselves and already out $7,500 for unreimbursed barn utilities, their hands were tied. They desperately contacted PPP daily, only to receive false assurances of delivery and a new pickup date of October 7, 2024.
As days turned into a week, the chickens endured starvation. The farmers describe entering the barn where thousands of birds flocked to them so desperate for food that the farmers were cautious of putting their hands near the ground afraid they might be pecked by thousands of starving chickens. When October 7, 2024 arrived, PPP neither showed up nor contacted the farmers that the pickup would not be completed. In total, the chickens were left without feed for a staggering 19 days. During this period, between 24-50 chickens died each day, primarily from starvation. Realizing no help was coming, and unable to sell chickens they didn't own, the farmers ultimately gave all the remaining birds away to prevent further suffering.
PPP demonstrated a complete failure of accountability as hundreds of thousands of chickens it owned starved, suffered, and died. This was not an incident that was isolated to Wisconsin where it impacted 11 separate flocks totaling 476,800 birds across the state. PPP’s abandonment of farmers and animals inflicted extensive hardship and suffering in all the states it operated in. In Iowa, PPP's inability to provide feed for 1.3 million chickens forced the state Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship to kill all of them. In Minnesota, the Agriculture Department stepped in to help six chicken farms affected by PPP's closure sell or give the birds away; however, many needed to be culled. Congressman Derrick Van Orden submitted a letter to the USDA, questioning how a company with a $38.7 million USDA loan could abandon "50 farmers and more than 2 million chickens throughout Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin."
More than nine months later, this devastating situation remains largely unresolved and PPP remains unaccountable for its criminal conduct.
This is where Animal Partisan and the Humane Farming Association step in. The groups have filed a legal complaint with the Buffalo County District Attorney to criminally prosecute Pure Prairie Poultry as a corporation. The complaint seeks 30 criminal charges: 15 counts for depriving animals of food under Wis. Stat. § 951.13(1) and 15 counts for animal abandonment under Wis. Stat. § 951.15, alongside a requested $300,000 monetary penalty.
Wisconsin's cruelty code is robust, designed to protect a broad range of animals, including chickens, and to allow for the criminal prosecution of corporations. These statutes affirm PPP’s duty to provide feed, a responsibility not negated by bankruptcy proceedings or financial mismanagement. While each instance of deprivation or abandonment could warrant a Class A misdemeanor charge (potentially $10,000 fine per animal, amounting to $240 million for the Wisconsin farm alone), the complaint seeks 30 charges to symbolize one count for each chicken found dead on September 29, 2024, the day after their feed bins ran empty, for efficient use of court resources.
PPP should not evade accountability and must face real consequences for the immense suffering, hardship, and stress inflicted on both chickens and farmers. Animal Partisan and the Humane Farming Association are committed to ensuring that industrial animal agriculture corporations pay some retribution for their criminal conduct and that such cruelty and misconduct are deterred in the future.
Animal Partisan represents itself in the matter and the Humane Farming Association is represented by Greenfire Law PC.
View a copy of the complaint HERE.
Help us continue to expose and challenge the systemic exploitation of animals in slaughterhouses, farms, and laboratories. Whether by making a donation, subscribing to our updates, or sharing resources and connections that may support our efforts, your involvement strengthens our pursuit of justice. Join us in driving meaningful change.
