{"id":10990,"date":"2025-03-08T09:48:23","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T16:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=10990"},"modified":"2025-03-09T08:06:35","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T15:06:35","slug":"is-giving-farmers-millions-to-kill-millions-of-chickens-the-way-to-curb-bird-flu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2025\/03\/08\/is-giving-farmers-millions-to-kill-millions-of-chickens-the-way-to-curb-bird-flu\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Giving Farmers Millions to Kill Millions of Chickens the Way to Curb Bird Flu?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Headline article below) There is a lot of poorly written stories about the egg crisis and the culling of chickens, so I looked for some background on what we’re paying for the culled animals, 75% of their value. And this article below is chopped full of disturbing details. One, I do think it’s a conspiracy to impoverish Americans and take away a great source of nutrition, as the OCGFC are using their megacorps and their government to poison and impoverish citizens with inflation and bad monetary policy, wanting to get them in their medical and pharmaceutical wealth transfer scheme. But they’re also profiting directly off the government, as since 2022, $1 billion has been paid for culled birds, with Tyson being a big recipient. Lets see who the big institutional holders of Tyson are? And its the OCGFC who’s who of funds with trillions under management. And pretty much the same for Hormel who owns Jennie-O.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There is of course the terrible PCR test that can be tweaked to come up positive on anything, so is bird flu even there? And there is an example of a farm not selling meat birds that was allowed to quarantine birds who only ended up losing 26 of 160 birds. So culling birds could be stretching out the problem instead of letting nature and their God given immune systems take care of it (maybe they need to do away with these weak breeds they utilize as well). And the inhumane way they’re killing the birds with heat stroke just shows how terribly our government is managing the industry. And now there is $1 billion dollars to find solutions and import eggs, so who is going to profit? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The OCGFC are always working multiple angles to enrich themselves further through the crises they manufacture, and they love taking your money and racking up more debt you’ll be responsible for along the way. Consequently, they’ll be the ones to force austerity on you, making it even more difficult for you to live and sustain yourself while they take even more treasure from you. As an added clue, they periodically float the idea of paying down the debt by taking your retirement accounts with a promise to pay you later… We should trust them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/www.poultryproducer.com\/is-giving-farmers-millions-to-kill-millions-of-chickens-the-way-to-curb-bird-flu\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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By Sophi Fairman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The highly lethal form of avian influenza<\/a> circulating the globe since 2021 has killed tens of millions of birds, forced poultry farmers in the United States to slaughter entire flocks and prompted a brief but alarming spike in the price of eggs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most recently, it has infected dairy cows<\/a> in several states and at least one person in Texas who had close contact with the animals, officials said<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outbreak, it turns out, is proving to be especially costly for American taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the Department of Agriculture paid poultry producers more than half a billion dollars for the turkeys, chickens and egg-laying hens they were forced to kill after the flu strain, H5N1, was detected on their farms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials say the compensation program is aimed at encouraging farms to report outbreaks quickly. That\u2019s because the government pays for birds killed through culling, not those that die from the disease. Early reporting, the agency says, helps to limit the virus\u2019s spread to nearby farms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cullings are often done by turning up the heat in barns that house thousands of birds, a method that causes heat stroke and that many veterinarians and animal welfare organizations say results in unnecessary suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the biggest recipients of the agency\u2019s bird flu indemnification<\/a> funds from 2022 to this year were Jennie-O Turkey Store, which received more than $88 million, and Tyson Foods, which was paid nearly $30 million. Despite their losses, the two companies reported billions of dollars in profits last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, a vast majority of the government payments went to the country\u2019s largest food companies \u2014 not entirely surprising given corporate America\u2019s dominance of meat and egg production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since February 2022, more than 82 million farmed birds have been culled, according to the agency\u2019s website<\/a>. For context, the American poultry industry produces more than nine billion chickens and turkeys each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tally of compensation<\/a> was obtained by Our Honor<\/a>, an animal welfare advocacy group, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S.D.A. The advocacy organization Farm Forward<\/a> collaborated on further analysis of the data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breakdown of compensation has not been publicly released, but agency officials confirmed the accuracy of the figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To critics of large-scale commercial farming, the payments highlight a deeply flawed system of corporate subsidies, which last year included more than $30 billion in taxpayer money directed to the agriculture sector, much of it for crop insurance, commodity price support and disaster aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they say the payments related to bird flu are troubling for another reason: By compensating commercial farmers for their losses with no strings attached, the federal government is encouraging poultry growers to continue the very practices that heighten the risk of contagion, increasing the need for future cullings and compensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese payments are crazy-making and dangerous,\u201d said Andrew deCoriolis, Farm Forward\u2019s executive director. \u201cNot only are we wasting taxpayer money on profitable companies for a problem they created, but we\u2019re not giving them any incentive to make changes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashley Peterson, senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs at the National Chicken Council, a trade association, disputed the suggestion that the government payouts reinforced problematic farming practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIndemnification is in place to help the farmer control and eradicate the virus \u2014 regardless of how the affected birds are raised,\u201d she said in an email. The criticisms, she added, were the work of \u201cvegan extremist groups who are latching on to an issue to try and advance their agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Highly pathogenic avian influenza has been circulating since 1996, but the virus had evolved to become even more lethal by the time it showed up in North America in late 2021. It led to the culling of nearly 60 million<\/a> farmed birds in the United States, and felled countless wild ones<\/a> and a great many mammals, from skunks to sea lions. Last week, federal author<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S.D.A. defended the program, saying, \u201cEarly reporting allows us to more quickly stop the spread of the virus to nearby farms,\u201d according to a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although modern farming practices have made animal protein much more affordable, leading to an almost doubling of meat consumption<\/a> over the past century, the industry\u2019s reliance on so-called concentrated animal-feeding operations comes with downsides. The giant sheds that produce nearly 99 percent of the nation\u2019s eggs and meat<\/a> spin off enormous quantities of animal waste that can degrade the environment, according to researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And infectious pathogens spread more readily<\/a> inside the crowded structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you wanted to create the ideal environment for fostering the mutation of pathogens, industrial farms would pretty much be the perfect setup,\u201d said Gwendolen Reyes-Illg, a scientist at the Animal Welfare Institute<\/a> who focuses on meat production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern chicken, genetically homogenous and engineered for fast growth, compounds those risks. Selective breeding has greatly reduced the time it takes to raise a barrel-breasted, table-ready broiler, but the birds are more susceptible<\/a> to infection<\/a> and death, according to researchers. That may help explain why more than 90 percent<\/a> of chickens infected with H5N1 die within 48 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank Reese, a fourth-generation turkey farmer in Kansas, said that the modern, broad-breasted white turkey is ready for slaughter in half the time of heritage breeds. But fast growth comes at a cost: The birds are prone to heart problems, high blood pressure and arthritic joints, among other health issues, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have weaker immune systems, because bless that fat little turkey\u2019s heart, they are morbidly obese,\u201d said Mr. Reese, 75, who pasture-raises rare heritage breeds. \u201cIt\u2019s the equivalent of an 11-year-old child who weighs 400 pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Author]ities for the first time identified the virus<\/a> in dairy cows in Kansas, Texas, Michigan, New Mexico and Idaho. The pathogen has also been implicated in a small number of human infections and deaths<\/a>, mostly among those who work with live poultry, and officials say the risks to people remains low<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The virus is extremely contagious among birds and spreads through nasal secretions, saliva and feces, making it tough to contain. Migrating waterfowl are the single greatest source of infection \u2014 even if many wild ducks show no signs of illness. The virus can find its way into barns via dust particles or on the sole of a farmer\u2019s boot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While infections in North America have ebbed and flowed over the past three years, the overall number has declined from 2022, according to the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, the nation\u2019s largest egg producer, Cal-Maine Foods, announced that<\/a> it had halted production at its Texas facility and culled more than 1.6 million birds after detecting avian influenza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal officials have been debating whether to vaccinate commercial flocks<\/a>, but the initiative has divided the industry, in part because it could prompt trade restrictions harmful to the nation\u2019s $6 billion poultry export sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many scientists, fearing that the next pandemic<\/a> could emerge from a human-adapted version of bird flu, have been urging the White House to embrace a vaccination campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agency\u2019s livestock indemnity program<\/a>, part of a farm bill passed by Congress in 2018, pays farmers 75 percent of the value of animals lost to disease or natural disaster. Since 2022, the program<\/a> has distributed more than $1 billion to affected farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics say the program also promotes animal cruelty by allowing farmers to euthanize their flocks by shutting down a barn\u2019s ventilation system<\/a> and pumping in hot air, a method that can take hours. Chickens and turkeys that survive are often dispatched by a twist of the neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crystal Heath, a veterinarian and co-founder of Our Honor<\/a>, said the American Veterinary Medical Association<\/a>, in partnership with the agriculture department, recommended that ventilation shutdown be used only under \u201cconstrained circumstances<\/a>.\u201d She added that a vast majority of farms relied on it because the process was inexpensive and easy to carry out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll you need are duct tape, tarps and a few rented heaters,\u201d Dr. Heath said. \u201cBut ventilation shutdown plus is especially awful because it can take three to five hours for the birds to die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thousands of veterinarians have signed a petition<\/a> urging the association to reclassify ventilation shutdown as \u201cnot recommended\u201d and say that other methods that use carbon dioxide or nitrogen are far more humane, even if they are more costly. Since the start of the outbreak through December 2023, ventilation shutdown was used to cull 66 million chickens and turkeys, or about 80 percent of all those killed, according to analysis of federal data<\/a> by the Animal Welfare Institute, which obtained the data through a Freedom of Information Act request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last summer, the institute filed a petition<\/a> asking the agriculture department to require farms to devise depopulation plans that are more humane as a condition for receiving compensation. The agency has yet to respond to the petition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyson and Jennie-O, the top recipients of federal compensation, have both used ventilation shutdown, according to an analysis of federal data<\/a>. Tyson declined to comment for this article, and Hormel, which owns the Jennie-O brand, did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some animal welfare advocates, pointing to recent outbreaks that were allowed to run their course, question whether killing every bird on an affected farm is even the right approach. When H5N1 hit Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary<\/a> in California in February 2023, killing three birds, the farm\u2019s operators steeled themselves for a state-mandated culling. Instead, California agriculture officials, citing a recently created exemption for farms that do not produce food, said they would spare the birds as long as strict quarantine measures were put in place for 120 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next few weeks, the virus claimed 26 of the farm\u2019s 160 chickens, ducks and turkeys, but the others survived, even those that had appeared visibly ill, according to Christine Morrissey, the sanctuary\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said the experience suggested that mass cullings might be unnecessary. \u201cThere needs to be more research and effort put into finding other ways of responding to this virus,\u201d Ms. Morrissey said, \u201cbecause depopulation is horrifying and it\u2019s not solving the problem at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the northward migration in full swing, poultry farmers like Caleb Barron are holding their breath. Mr. Barron, an organic farmer in California, said there was only so much he could do to protect the livestock at Fogline Farm<\/a> given that the birds spent most of their lives outdoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, the birds remain unscathed. Perhaps it\u2019s because Mr. Barron raises a hardier breed of chicken, or maybe it\u2019s because his birds have a relatively good life, which includes high-quality feed and low stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOr maybe,\u201d he said, \u201c it\u2019s just luck.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Headline article below) There is a lot of poorly written stories about the egg crisis and the culling of chickens, so I looked for some background on what we’re paying for the culled animals, 75% of their value. And this article below is chopped full of disturbing details. One, I do think it’s a conspiracy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10990"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11005,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10990\/revisions\/11005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}