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.

    • @jeffwOPM
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      281 year ago

      Why use a method that’s illegal most other places? The description is pretty insane sounding.

      • @pigup
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        71 year ago

        They never answer the question

      • @[email protected]
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        -61 year ago

        Why is it illegal? I suppose in this instance you contain the birds in a barn that might be deseased and withdraw their oxygen. Probably the cleanest way to do it.

        • @jeffwOPM
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          191 year ago

          Right. So why are they normalizing this method? It’s illegal because it’s so cruel, that’s like the entire point of the article lol

          • @[email protected]
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            -81 year ago

            They used to drive cattle into a pit and shoot them until they were all dead. Like I said at the outset, it’s always cruel.

            • @jeffwOPM
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              121 year ago

              I fail to see how shooting something in the head is the same as hours of torture. There are reasons we have animal welfare standards.

    • Neato
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      141 year ago

      This is equivalent of leaving a child in a hot car in cruelty.

        • @suchwin
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          141 year ago

          What if a kid had an incurable spreadable disease? Throw them in the hot summer car?

        • @4lan
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          1 year ago

          Did you know that humans are animals? We are not some sort of godly being separated from nature, we came from it and we are a part of it.

          You noticed that no one in here is arguing that these diseased animals should be kept alive, right? Your argument is in bad faith and it’s clear you barely thought about it before typing.

          Our problem is with how it is done, euthanasia is supposed to be humane and fast. This is an extremely slow and painful process in which the chicken is subjected to extreme distress needlessly. Just to save a few bucks.

          They could have at least incapacitated the birds first. They didn’t need to be awake for their brutal slow death.

          • @assassin_aragorn
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            01 year ago

            Did you know that humans are animals? We are not some sort of godly being separated from nature, we came from it and we are a part of it.

            Great, so you have no issues with people eating meat then? Since animals also eat meat, and humans are animals?

            • @4lan
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              11 year ago

              Yep! I have no problem with a human eating meat. Nice try tho

              My only problem lies with the manner in which we obtain that meat.

              I have the utmost respect for hunters, they actually earned their meat.
              I have no respect for people who buy factory farmed meat in a grocery store. There is nothing natural about that.

              Calm down and have your mom make you some more tendies

    • @[email protected]
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      31 year ago

      Sometimes yes, farmers do have to cull animals. All of the farmers I’ve met try to do it in a quick way at least, like cutting off the head of a chicken or a cattle gun to knock the animal out first.

      • @[email protected]
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        -21 year ago

        Cutting off the heads of a thousand diseased chickens would take a bit of time, don’t you think?

          • @[email protected]
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            -31 year ago

            Culling isn’t humane. Culling is a necessity. Farmers and ranchers don’t like to cull, they lose money doing it. You give them a cleaner and cheaper way to do it, and they’ll do that. Culling prevents disease from spreading into the entire food system. Sitting on your couch and deciding the best tactic to do it is ridiculous.

              • @[email protected]
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                -21 year ago

                Sigh. The reason that you cull is a transmittable disease is present within a group of livestock. That livestock can not be eaten, so you take it out of the food supply before it infects other groups. Not so hard to understand is it?

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      They could have just not made the chickens in the first place

      Then it wouldn’t need to be done