Nearly 165,000 egg-laying hens died Saturday after a barn fire raged through an Arizona egg farm, a spokesperson said.
The hens died when two of the 10-lane barns at Hickman’s Family Farm in Tonopah burned, KNXV reported.
“It’s super unfortunate — it’s devastating to us,” Sharman Hickman, a spokesperson for Hickman’s Family Farms, told The Arizona Republic.
Firefighters responded to a report of the fire at the farm around 1 p.m. local time and were able to contain the second-alarm fire within three hours, Sarah Mendoza, a spokesperson for Buckeye Valley Fire District, told the Republic.
An unidentified man was hospitalized in stable condition for smoke inhalation, Mendoza told the newspaper. No firefighters were injured.
The egg farm has 26 chicken houses. Hickman said the family will not know the cost of the damage until the investigation is completed.
“Of course we wanted those eggs to be able to have for families for their Easter celebrations, but first and foremost we need to thank our first responders and staff that tried to do everything they could to save our birds, save each other, making sure everybody was as safe as possible,” Hickman told the Republic.
