Dead Costco chickens produce piles of bones outside a Nebraska town. Residents complain about 'smell of death'
- Some Nebraska residents are complaining about discarded chicken parts from Costco's operations.
- There are at least 94 barns with nearly 450,000 chickens within a few miles of one town.
Costco's chicken supplier is under fire from some Nebraska residents after poultry parts discarded from the area's barns — home to nearly 450,000 chickens — have been spread over fields as compost, the Nebraska Examiner reported Friday.
The piles of bones are visible in fields around David City, Nebraska, which is about 80 miles west of Omaha, area residents told the Examiner. David City Mayor Alan Zavodny also expressed concern that composting operations were near the city's water wells, the Examiner reported.
Bones and other discarded parts from dead chickens can be piled up at the chicken barns themselves, the Examiner reported, citing state laws. The piles can sit there as they turn into compost to potentially be sold to nearby farmers or to be otherwise disposed of. Nearby residents complained to the publication of the smell of those operations.
"It was just the smell of death," Greg Lanc, a farmer who lives within a mile of nearly 50 chicken barns, told the Examiner. He said he was "disgusted" at the chicken parts he could see from his home. Sam Barlean, another farmer in the area, called the smell "unbearable."
The compositing operations followed state guidelines, the Examiner reported, but aside from the smell, residents complained of what happens to the compost after it gets moved off the site of the barns.
The compost can be sold to farmers to be used as fertilizer: One of the farmers who bought the compost spread it over his fields, the Examiner reported, but an inspection by the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy flagged that chicken bones were visible in the compost; a state inspector asked for additional soil to be placed on the visible bones, the Examiner reported.
The area around David City is home to more than 440,000 chickens spread across 94 barns that supply chickens for Costco's chicken processing plant, Lincoln Premium Poultry. Butler County, where David City is located, lacks county zoning regulations that prevent concentrated industrial farms in other areas.
Costco didn't respond to Insider's request for comment regarding chicken disposal. The company's animal welfare information page says "We are working toward a uniform program in the countries/regions where we operate, while respecting that each country may have its own regulatory and social requirements in place."
Costco's chicken production line has been called into question before. In June 2022, two Costco shareholders filed a lawsuit in Washington accusing the company of knowingly breeding chickens too large to stand up, where "disabled birds slowly die from hunger, thirst, injury, and illness." Costco executives were named as defendants for allegedly ignoring reports of the abuse.
Costco opened a massive chicken production plant in Fremont, Nebraska, in 2019. The membership club invested $450 million in the plant with plans to eventually scale up to processing 2 million chicken per week, up to 100 million per year.
In 2021, Mercy for Animals visited Costco's chicken-processing facility and described conditions that included "chickens struggling to walk under their own unnatural weight," "bodies burned bare from ammonia-laden litter," "dead days-old chicks," and "piles of rotting birds."
Rotisserie chickens remain a Costco staple. The company sold 106 million in 2021 and has publicly committed to keeping them priced at $4.99, below many of its competitors. The price has remained the same since 2009, even as costs of labor and production have increased. Costco takes a loss on the chickens, using them as a strategy to draw customers into stores, where Costco hopes they will buy other products with higher margins.
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