TREMPEALEAU, Wis. — Western Wisconsin farmers have given away thousands of chicks they hatched under contract with an Iowa chicken procesor that went belly up. Yes: Free chicks, although farmers, desperate for cash, accepted donations. There was no choice, said Kyle Nilsestuen, president of Trempealeau County Farm Bureau. A Minnesota-based company Pure Prairie Poultry, had defaulted on federal loans and dissolved itself without warning. The company’s Iowa plant suddenly went dark. Chicken-breeders had huge barns of chicks with no place to sell them. Nilsestuen said he was aware of one farmer near Mondovi in Buffalo County who was going through $20,000 a week for feed for his chicks. Chicken-breeders in Wisconsin and Minnesota opened their barns to the public to dispose of the chicks rather than euthanize them or let them starve. In Iowa, the state government took over and bought feed for chicks. However, neither Wisconsin nor Minnesota has statutory authority for such a bailout.