Thousands of baby chickens died from excessive heat after being left on the tarmac in the afternoon sun at Miami airport, report says

• Thousands of baby chickens died from excessive heat in a Miami airport on Tuesday.
• The chicks were unloaded from a plane and left on the tarmac in the sweltering sun.

Thousands of baby chickens died from excessive heat after they left in the afternoon sun at Miami airport on Tuesday, reports say.

The chicks were unloaded from a plane and then left on the tarmac, where the temperature reached 99 degrees, according to CNN affiliate WPLG.

The birds, tightly packed into cardboard boxes, were shipped on a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul and arrived at Miami International Airport at 1:16pm ET on Tuesday, per CNN.

The chicks were unloaded from the plane onto metal baggage carts and left in the baking sun, WPLG reported.

They were found during a routine patrol by a Miami-Dade airport employee four hours later, Greg Chin, a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Aviation Department, told CNN.

Of the 5,200 chicks in the shipment, only 1,300 made it to their intended destination, a farm in the Bahamas, the farm's representatives told WPLG.

Staff from the Abaco Big Bird Family Farm in the Bahamas said they were horrified by the incident and had never seen anything like it in 27 years of being in business, the outlet reported.

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services was notified that the "birds had died as a result of excessive heat while awaiting transport to the Bahamas," spokesperson Erin Moffet said, per CNN.

The chicks were reportedly unloaded by employees of Eulen America, an airport auxiliary service company. another company does the transportation and delivery, spokesperson Marla Gomez told CNN in a statement.

The Florida agriculture department said that law enforcement officials would conduct any investigation into the incident.