LUNENBURG, Mass. -- About 14,000 chickens will be euthanized after no way was found to free them from their collapsed coop at a Lunenburg egg farm.

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Inspectors Examine Building

NewsCenter 5's David Boeri reported that the roof, burdened with ice and snow, collapsed Friday morning. State officials and inspectors attempted to find some way to rescue the surviving chickens but decided by late afternoon to euthanize the birds.

"We've had a tragedy here that we're trying to resolve in the best humane way," said Robert Aro of Aro Farm.

The roof of the 260-foot building on the family-run farm likely collapsed because of a weakness in the structure and not just because of the snow, inspectors said.

"The other building that I looked at, which is the same construction method, is very well intact," building inspector Michael Sauvageau said. "It seems very well-constructed, and it could be just a combination of a possibility of a failure on a roof truss with the combination of snow and wind load."

The building was condemned early in the morning, but officials were still trying to save the hens, who could be heard clucking behind the bowed walls of the coop. Because the chickens are packed in tight quarters in the coop, there was no way to reach them.

"You can't go into a building that's half down. It's dangerous," poultry dealer Tom Kaczynski said. "And they would have to gas the birds, which is the only humane way to do it."

State inspectors said that the building would be enclosed and carbon dioxide gas would be pumped in to put the chickens to sleep.