Ventilation shut down used to "depopulate" farm animals

[Catherine]

Farm animals are raised intensely on a tight time line. They are expected to go to slaughter very quickly and there is not provision for holding them beyond that time. Because of the pandemic many of the slaughter houses are shut down because workers have tested positive.
A lot of farmers have chosen to depopulate their farms. The method they use is brutal. They turn up the heat and turn off the ventilation system.
So the animals die slowly of a combination of suffocation and heat stress. However an animal actually dies, it will have suffered greatly before it dies.
Thousands of animals have been killed this way.

The AVMA proposed guidelines for animals to be killed this way. They were in refence to emergency situations where whole herds of animals were ill and needed to be disposed of quickly.  This method was not intended for healthy animals  under completely different circumstances. 


https://awionline.org/press-releases/ven...ses-severe

The Animal Welfare Institute has questioned using this method to kill healthy animals. It is most certainly an excessively cruel method.
These animals are being killed for reasons of profit and economic benefit to the farmer. At no point is the well being of the animals considered.



There is something totally wrong with our farming methods if this is the result. The system doesn't work. 
If a glitch like the closing of slaughterhouses temporarily results in farmers killing thousands of healthy animals then we need to change our system.
If the farmers are willing to kill the animals cruelly, then we need to change our farmers.

None of us was really prepared for the pandemic, but we have managed. We didn't make brutal choices that caused extreme suffering. I think this situation needs to be thoroughly examined to understand what went wrong and changes need to be made so this cannot happen again. Making deliberate ventilation shutdown illegal is a start. Changing the system so this situation can't happen again is better.
Better still is giving up such a heavy meat based diet. Do we really want to eat meat if this is what it can lead to.