Mallorca chicken farm: dead hens, mites on eggs

Footage of dead hens and mites on eggs at a chicken farm in Manacor, Mallorca, prompts a complaint to Balearic prosecutors. Animal welfare groups Arde and Satya Animal filed it on Monday after filming inside two sheds at the Maribó farm in July. Avícola Ballester runs the sheds, which hold around 40,000 hens.

What the footage shows

The groups say footage taken on three separate days shows hens with missing feathers and open wounds. Several dead birds are shown decomposing among the living hens. The groups also report cockroaches, flies and a build-up of manure.

A veterinary report submitted with the complaint warns of a food safety risk. It says some eggs lay on droppings and other organic material or near dead birds, while mites were found on eggshells and hens. Those conditions could help bacteria contaminate eggs, the report says. The groups have not reported finding contamination in the eggs themselves.

Previous fines and plans for more hens

Avícola Ballester has been fined over other farms, according to the groups. In 2025, the Balearic agriculture department fined it €200,000 over dead rodents and hens, missing animal-health records and poor hygiene at a farm in Llucmajor, Mallorca. A year earlier, it received a €150,000 fine that included operating a farm without the required environmental permit and mishandling manure.

In June, the company proposed two new sheds in Manacor with room for 80,000 hens. Local people formed the No Macrogranja group and lodged objections, warning that the site lies above groundwater vulnerable to nitrate pollution.

Arde wants the new project stopped and the farm it investigated closed. The groups also plan to take their findings to the Balearic agriculture department.

Topics: Nature & wildlife · Agriculture · Manacor · Palma · Llucmajor · Sineu

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com