Thousands of chickens are put up for sale on Facebook by a Yorkshire student

A student's posted an update on Facebook advertising 10,000 chickens for sale.

Ellie Seels, 18, put up the ad, which was shared more than 3,000 times.

Unfortunately the sale has now ended, and - brace yourself - the remaining unsold chickens were taken for slaughter on Monday.

Every 13 months, Ellie's family farm in North Yorkshire has to replace its hens because the quality of their eggs falls and shops don't want them.

Ellie was trying to shift the egg-laying hens to save as many as possible from being put down.

"I didn't wanted them all to go off to slaughter," she tells Newsbeat. "They still lay good enough eggs."

But this is something she's had to go through before.

"It's sad to know they've gone, but I've had to deal with it for the last seven years, so I'm used to it by now."

How could you send these little guys to the slaughterhouse?

Ellie posted a message on Facebook 10 days ago advertising the free-range hens for £1 each.

The post attracted interest from hundreds of wannabe chicken owners.

Ellie managed to sell or give away "6-7,000" of the lucky ones.

"Most people took two each, but some took a few hundred," she says.

Her family also gave some of the birds away to local schools.

Ellie's had to say goodbye to more than 10,000 hens in the last week and a half

But the remaining few thousand were taken away for slaughter "at about four o'clock this morning [Monday]".

"I don't know exactly what they're used for [once they are slaughtered]. To be honest I don't want to go into detail to find out," she says.

This isn't the first time Ellie has posted the chickens for sale on Facebook, but it's the first year her post has attracted so much interest.

Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat