this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Last year, I wrote a great deal about the rise of “ventilation shutdown plus” (VSD+), a method being used to mass kill poultry birds on factory farms by sealing off the airflow inside barns and pumping in extreme heat using industrial-scale heaters, so that the animals die of heatstroke over the course of hours. It is one of the worst forms of cruelty being inflicted on animals in the US food system — the equivalent of roasting animals to death — and it’s been used to kill tens of millions of poultry birds during the current avian flu outbreak.

As of this summer, the most recent period for which data is available, more than 49 million birds, or over 80 percent of the depopulated total, were killed in culls that used VSD+ either alone or in combination with other methods, according to an analysis of USDA data by Gwendolen Reyes-Illg, a veterinary adviser to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), an animal advocacy nonprofit. These mass killings, or “depopulations,” in the industry’s jargon, are paid for with public dollars through a USDA program that compensates livestock farmers for their losses.

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[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 117 points 1 year ago (40 children)

Just pump nitrogen in the sealed pens. The animal doesn’t panic due to perceived oxygen deprivation. They just get sleepy and die.

Hell it would be the way I’d want to go if I was sick with terminal cancer. Cheap, easy, and painless.

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 64 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I imagine that would be pretty difficult to do in a chicken coop. These are barns made out of corrugated steel and generally aren't even remotely air tight. You will, ultimately, need about 10x the nitrogen you would otherwise need, and that's if it even works.

So a special coop would need to be built for this purpose.

Chicken farmers are some of the poorest farmers in the country. They generally don't have the means to build a special kill shed to humanely euthanize their flock. They barely have the means to keep up with Tyson and Perdue's ridiculous bullshit.

So, while I agree, heat stroke is a fucking awful way to kill these animals, the issue isn't just "there's a humane method bro, just build a kill house bro"

The issue is, we are paying FAR too little for chicken, and most meat, honestly.

[–] Szymon@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you have millions of chickens to kill, you're not so poor of a farmer that be you can't afford to come up with a humane method to do this job.

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 54 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There are several documentaries on this topic, but they don't have a lot of authority over how many chickens they buy. They're dictated a flock size, they pay for it, and then they pay to feed and raise them, then they sell them back to the people they bought the chicks from. Inevitably every year the chicken processor, whoever it may be, makes additional demands that they also have to pay out of pocket for.

I'm not justifying their actions, I'm saying they are stuck between two masters and they have no room to wiggle.

[–] ohitsbreadley@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Out of complete ignorance - do Purdue or Tyson even run their own hatcheries/coops?

[–] Kepabar@startrek.website 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

No.

It's cheaper to out source it this way because as their farmers are contractors they don't have to adhere to the legal responsibilities they would if they ran them in their own.

They can keep their contracted farmers in debt to them indefinitely and essentially have a class of indentured servants.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have learned more in this discussion about chicken farming than I ever thought I would.

Sometimes I just love the internet.

Welcome to the Internet, come and take a seat.

I thought that was the case. They probably own the IP rights to the breed too, so they keep the money circulating within their own pockets

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

You’re not wrong and nuance is often the bane of rationality. I didn’t say it was an easy solution just a more humane one.

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[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I imagine there are a handful of ways to do it besides “long, slow heat stroke”

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

I imagine the long, slow, painful, heat stroke method is the cheapest, thus the suffering is capitalist-approved!

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We are getting that heat stroke thing thrown back to us soon lol

[–] ridethisbike@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Us: pumping heat into the atmosphere.

Mother earth: oh you guys cold? Don't worry, I got you fam!

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doesn't sound as cheap as running the heater for a few hours.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Think of the power/gas savings!

[–] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Carbon monoxide would be cheaper. We used it for euthanizing animals that couldn't be saved at the wildlife rehab center I worked at. Though, it was done with sealed induction box, not a drafty barn like someone mentioned

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Sounds like it would be more expensive? Nitrogen is incredibly cheap to concentrate out of the air, 70% of what we breath is nitrogen after all.

[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago

Monoxide is incredibly cheap to produce with a crappy farm truck or old tractor. You doing need to distill or concentrate anything, just a hose and the exhaust pipe and a couple hours of fuel for idling.

We used it to gas a nest of rats that had settled in under a grain bin floor. Only a couple rats popped out and they were dazed, the dogs quickly snacked them up. The rest expired rapidly.

A chicken barn is big and drafty but you could just use multiple tractors or detune them on purpose. Any engine running rich produces a lot of CO.

[–] rbesfe@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nitrogen is expensive and these buildings aren't airtight

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

These are engineering problems. The point is it’s way more humane than dying in a sweat lodge.

[–] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

Eh, the atmosphere is 70% nitrogen, making liquid nitrogen is basically just a suped up AC.

There are also various methods of simply filtering the nitrogen out of the air. Having on site machines doesn't seem too bad.

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Those big coops are not anything close to airtight. Heat, however, doesn't require it to be airtight.

[–] pan_troglodytes@programming.dev 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

wouldnt that be more expensive than just cutting off the ventilation? on top of paying for disposal afterwards & whatnot?

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Disposal of what? The air we breathe is 75% nitrogen. The chickens are already going to have be disposed of.

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