ASHBURNHAM, Mass. (AP) — A central Massachusetts farmer says 200 chicks have been stolen from their pen at his farm and he suspects animal rights activists are to blame.
Keith Kopley at Kalon Farm in Ashburnham says the Cornish cross chicks hatched in Pennsylvania were delivered on March 13.
He put them in a sawdust-lined wooden pen with two heat lamps and posted a photo on Facebook of them swarming about their feeders and water dish.
Sometime between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. last Thursday, they vanished.
Kopley tells The Sentinel and Enterprise he doesn't think the theft was profit motivated, because expensive power tools nearby were left behind. He says there's no evidence a predator got in the pen.
"Everything was gone. There wasn't one chick, no sign of a chick or nothing. Didn't know what to… I looked all over the room, thinking did they get out, and it just didn't add up," Kopley said.
He thinks the theft was a political statement.
Police confirm they are investigating.