because it's not about how easy it is, it's about how fast it is. If they can't do it fast enough by using another method, the risk of more flocks being infected and having to be put down are going rise. They are trying desperately to stop a major rapid spreading and costly virus from wiping out our flocks. I'm wondering where the birds are killed and processed, normally? Probably not at the farms. They are most likely shipped live to processing facilities that are set up to slaughter large numbers of birds. If they are infected, they don't want them being shipped anywhere. They need to contain it.
Also, since these birds are not allowed out of the barns they are raised and live in, how are they becoming infected in the first place? Why can't we find a better way to stop it before it happens. I can see free range flocks being infected, because they are exposed to other birds.
One thing that this does tell me is that factory farming means not being able to handle bad situations. Because of the numbers of birds infected, or exposed, they don't have adequate measures to deal with this humanely. I think factory farming of all livestock needs to be put to an end. All livestock suffers in factory farms. Smaller farms could handle this and there would be fewer animals being infected at one time, and much easier to deal with it quckly once they are.
So, I'm torn, because this may be their only option right now to euthanize these birds and stop the spread of infection fast enough to contain it. Or is it partly because they don't use clean enough handling systems, and the humans are the ones spreading it (on their shoes or clothes)? Maybe it's a proactive measure that needs to be set up as a requirement for all fowl factories.
Something surely needs to change.
Iowa, the hardest hit, has euthanized more than 31 million birds, including approximately 40% of the state’s 60 million laying hens, according to Randy Olson, executive director of the Iowa Poultry Association...Minnesota, the leading turkey producer, has lost nearly 9 million turkeys.
The massive challenge of disposing of these sick birds illustrates the scale of chicken farming in the US. When avian flu infects a single bird on a chicken farm, the whole population has to be destroyed in order to stop the spread. In Iowa, for example, where an egg farm holds anywhere from 70,000 to 5 million birds, infection means slaughtering an unimaginable number of animals.
“Bird flu is a window into how today’s poultry flocks live day to day, in intensive confinement and unsanitary conditions. It’s an unnatural, unsustainable situation.”
Composting – in which dead birds are laid in rows, mixed with a bulking agent such as wood chips or saw dust and then left for approximately 30 days – is the preferred method of disposal, Benson says, because the virus is killed by the heat produced as the birds decompose.
http://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2015/jul/14/bird-flu-devastation-highlights-unsustainability-of-commercial-chicken-farming
Apparently heat is required to kill the virus, which may be why they've resorted to this method, rather than composting for 30 days which means possible spread?
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