JANESVILLE, Wis. — A farm in Janesville is still working to rebuild after a tornado tore through the property last summer, causing major damage.
MacFarlane Pheasants is one of the largest pheasant producers in the country, and has been part of the Janesville community for nearly 100 years.
When the tornado hit in June, barns collapsed, leading to the loss of about 44,000 pheasants.
Company president William MacFarlane and his team spent days looking for missing birds.
“Some of the barns were just rubble, so we had to figure a way to start catching the birds,” he said.“Some of the barns were just rubble, so we had to figure a way to start catching the birds,” he said. “Some of them obviously got killed when the barns fell down.”
While it was a huge loss, MacFarlane said he’s thankful every day that none of his family or workers were injured.
“The most important thing was keep our employees safe, don’t have any injuries or any problems that way, and then get our birds under care,” MacFarlane said.
He said he’s lucky that their newly remodeled hatchery wasn’t as badly damaged. They were able to start hatching new chicks again by August.
However, MacFarlane said he is disappointed by the lack of federal help. Because he’s a game bird producer, he was denied assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which provides aid to livestock producers when livestock deaths are caused by adverse weather.
“I wasn’t counting on it,” MacFarlane said. “I didn’t have it. I didn’t have the money spent already or anything. It just it was hard to think that there are other types of animals that are raised that, to me, it’s no different. But the pheasants are excluded.”
Now, as they continue to fix the damage that was done, they’re also closely following the recent spread of the avian flu. MacFarlane said he has the highest health precautions in place at his farm.
Even so, he said it adds to a challenging six months.
“I think after what’s been going on, I mentioned to some of the employees, I thought it’d be good to take a year where we just kind of take a deep breath,” MacFarlane said.