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Frigid air slows efforts to euthanize turkeys in Indiana
By Rick Callahan
Associated Press
Published: Monday, January 18, 2016, 1:34 p.m.
INDIANAPOLIS ? Frigid temperatures are hampering efforts to euthanize turkeys at several southwestern Indiana farms where a strain of bird flu was found last week, freezing the hoses used to spread a foam that suffocates the affected flocks, a spokeswoman for a state agency said Monday.
The H7N8 virus was discovered on 10 turkey farms in Dubois County, which is Indiana?s top poultry-producing county, last week.
Temperatures that dipped into the teens and single digits over the weekend stymied efforts to fill the affected poultry barns with the foam to a level just above the turkeys? heads to suffocate them, said Denise Derrer of the Indiana State Board of Animal
Health.
?The water?s been freezing up. It?s slowing things down, but we?re doing the best we can,? she said.
Derrer said state workers, staff from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and others have been using carbon dioxide gas instead of the foam. Other turkeys are being killed manually with a device that delivers a fatal head injury, but that method is slow and inefficient, she said.
...
As of Monday, nearly 120,000 turkeys had been killed on four of the farms, while efforts to euthanize about 121,000 turkeys continued on six other farms.
...
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20160118/NEWS02/160118996
By Rick Callahan
Associated Press
Published: Monday, January 18, 2016, 1:34 p.m.
INDIANAPOLIS ? Frigid temperatures are hampering efforts to euthanize turkeys at several southwestern Indiana farms where a strain of bird flu was found last week, freezing the hoses used to spread a foam that suffocates the affected flocks, a spokeswoman for a state agency said Monday.
The H7N8 virus was discovered on 10 turkey farms in Dubois County, which is Indiana?s top poultry-producing county, last week.
Temperatures that dipped into the teens and single digits over the weekend stymied efforts to fill the affected poultry barns with the foam to a level just above the turkeys? heads to suffocate them, said Denise Derrer of the Indiana State Board of Animal
Health.
?The water?s been freezing up. It?s slowing things down, but we?re doing the best we can,? she said.
Derrer said state workers, staff from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and others have been using carbon dioxide gas instead of the foam. Other turkeys are being killed manually with a device that delivers a fatal head injury, but that method is slow and inefficient, she said.
...
As of Monday, nearly 120,000 turkeys had been killed on four of the farms, while efforts to euthanize about 121,000 turkeys continued on six other farms.
...
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20160118/NEWS02/160118996