Thousands of chickens at an Albany, Minnesota, contract egg farm were gassed to death due to a downturn in demand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. As reported by the Star Tribune, Kerry Mergen learned that his egg-producing flock, consisting of 61,000 chickens, would be killed from a field manager with Daybreak Foods out of Wisconsin.
Mergen told the news agency that he was one of five area farms forced to kill chickens due to a downturn in demand over the past several weeks. Most of Mergen’s eggs were destined for Cargill, Inc., a fluid-egg facility which has furloughed employees because of declining demand.
In a statement, the company explains:
It is important to note that food-service orders have not stopped, but with the decline in food-service orders, Cargill and its egg suppliers are working diligently to rebalance supply to match these consumer and customer shifts.”
Mergen’s flock was killed on April 9, he tells the news agency:
“They come in with carts, put them all in carts, wheel them up to the end, put a hose in that cart and gas them, then dump them over the edge into a conveyor and convey them up into semis and the semis haul them out. I was in there for quite a while and the longer I was there the more disgusted and disappointed I was knowing that I’m not going to see anything put back in my checkbook again, so after a while I just simply left.
The culled chickens were taken to a rendering plant to be turned into dog food.
As for Mergen, he and his wife now have no source of income and do not qualify for unemployment. They are waiting to see if they can receive any federal aid.
Shuttered businesses are hurting farms across the nation – milk is being dumped and cows ordered killed, and produce is being thrown away, even while thousands of people line up at food banks because they have no money for groceries.
(Stock image via Pixabay)
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