Amid the largest U.S. outbreak of bird flu in the past seven years, an Iowa-based Rembrandt Enterprises plant, one of the largest egg factories in the world, killed 5.3 million chickens after detecting one confirmed case of avian flu, according to The Guardian.
Outside organizations, including animal rights groups Animal Outlook and Direct Action Everywhere, have decried the factory’s method of containing the outbreak because of the extreme animal suffering caused by the ventilation shutdown plus culling method. VSD+ is a process where the air is closed off to the barns and chicken coops, and heat is introduced to the environment until temperatures rise above 104F (40C), causing the chickens to gradually die from heat suffocation.
James Roth, director of the Center for Food Security and Public Health at Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine told The Guardian, “Nobody wants to see it used, but sometimes it is, as a last resort. The rationale is if the influenza virus spreads so fast that it’ll go through a poultry house really rapidly, all of those birds produce massive amounts of virus in the air. Then you have a big plume of virus coming from that house that spreads to other poultry houses. It’s critical to get the birds euthanized before that virus becomes a huge plume of virus to spread.”
Under fire, too, are the factory’s actions in managing its laborers and supervisors. Overnight, their duties were transitioned to disposal of the chickens and hens. At the end of the month spent on the task, they were fired.
“Right now everybody’s worried about the chickens,” said Oscar Garcia, a former supervisor at the plant. “We get it: it was really inhumane the way they killed them. But chickens are chickens, right? People worked in those barns pulling out dead birds in terrible conditions, feces everywhere, doing 12- or 14-hour days.”
Another report, by Bloomberg, notes the avian flu epidemic has driven the price of breaker eggs, eggs processed into either liquid or powders, to record highs. Full Story
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