USDA’s Chief Veterinary Officer on Sick Birds: Cut Off Ventilation, Kill Them

With the fast-moving strain of avian flu afflicting millions
of birds at poultry farms throughout the country, farmers are looking for
quicker, more efficient ways to kill their infected flocks.

Earlier this week, John Clifford, the chief veterinary officer
for the USDA, made an appalling suggestion regarding the best and “most humane
way to quickly kill the infected birds.

According to The
Washington Post, “At a hearing organized to discuss the impact of the
avian flu, which has affected nearly 50 million birds in the United
States, he suggested that farmers could have killed infected chickens and
turkeys more efficiently by shutting off ventilation systems at poultry
barns.

Current, approved methods of killing the infected birds
include using carbon dioxide gas or a water-based foam that kills birds within
about a minute.

The author explains:

All things being equal, cutting off
ventilation to more than a million birds at once is largely
considered a crueler way to kill chickens. Without ventilation,
temperatures rise, air becomes still, and chickens suffer; their organs eventually
fail, they become lethargic, and they eventually die of either heat or
suffocation or both. It’s the sort of thing that happens by
accident—like it did earlier this year at a battery farm in China,
where some 6,000
chickens died, rather than by choice.

Cutting off the ventilation and causing birds to suffocate
or overheat is beyond inhumane and makes it even clearer that the chicken
industry puts profits before the welfare of the animals it keeps in hellish
factory farm conditions.

Do your part to help end the cruel treatment of farmed
animals by choosing to eat delicious and humane plant-based alternatives to
meat, dairy, and eggs. Learn more at ChooseVeg.com.