020322 A Million Chickens May Die Amid Money Woes

Atlanta - Up to 1 million starving chickens in Georgia and Florida may have to be killed after their financially strapped owner stopped feeding them.

Cypress Foods Inc., which filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, left about 1.4 million egg- laying hens in southeast Georgia and central Florida without feed for as long as 10 days, agriculture officials said.

About 1.2 million of the hens were on nine farms in southeast Georgia near Blackshear. Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin estimated that two-thirds of those birds — almost 800,000 — may be unsalvageable because they are so emaciated and diseased.

"We're getting some good cooperation, but it's still a very tedious thing to deal with," Irvin said. "You run the risk of spreading disease, and we've put the farms under quarantine."

Calls to the Cypress Foods' corporate office in Winter Haven, Fla., on Thursday were not answered.

Georgia officials were notified of the starving birds late last week, and about 300,000 to 350,000 already have been sold to other active poultry companies, Irvin said.

The rest likely will end up at a rendering plant to be disposed of, he said.

Georgia has about 11.5 million egg-laying hens and is among the country's top egg-producing states, said Robert Howell, executive director of the Georgia Egg Commission.

At a Cypress Foods farm near Dade City, Fla., prison inmates worked for a second day to clear an estimated 20,000 dead chickens from the open warehouse-type buildings that housed 200,000 laying hens.

Florida state veterinarian Dr. Leroy M. Coffman said if any of the birds still alive were in good enough condition they would be placed somewhere. But these were older birds, he said, and with the lack of food and amount of stress they had endured, he was not hopeful any would be spared.

A spokesman for the sheriff's office in Pasco County, Fla., where one of the farms is located, said investigators were trying to find out who stopped the feedings and whether any charges would be filed.

Cypress Foods filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in Tampa, Fla., on Jan. 2 and continued to operate the business. Andrea Bauman was assigned as trustee on Feb. 28 following an emergency hearing sought by creditors.

Bauman contacted agricultural officials in the two states and spent the weekend visiting all the farms, accompanied by state officials, her attorney said.

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