| By Big Radio News Staff |

MacFarlane Pheasants says it lost 55,000 birds in the June 22 tornado that tore apart part of its Janesville bird operation.

In a statement released Tuesday by MacFarlane, the company says the tornado caused $2 million in damage to the farm on the city’s south side.

It was in the direct path of an EF-2 tornado that tore through in June.

The company has been forthcoming on details of the damage to its bird operation, but the announcement gives the full scope of MacFarlane’s losses.

MacFarlane now says 28,000 pheasants died or escaped during the tornado. And 27,000 Spanish Red Leg partridges got wiped out in the storm. That’s about a third of the farm’s partridge population.

The birds were harmed or got out as their enclosures got blown apart by the twister.

MacFarlane says it normally repairs about 50 fence posts that give shape to its netted bird enclosures. The tornado, on the other hand, took out 2,000 of those posts.

MacFarlane says its 90 employees and its management plan to rebuild the farm with improvements.

The company’s been in business 95 years.