After two incidences where hundreds of chickens were smothered to death over the summer, PETA is asking the Allamakee County Attorney to open an investigation on Agri Star Meat & Poultry in Postville.

In an article by KCRG,  USDA documents say 317 chickens were killed during an incident on July 8th, 2021. During this incident, a worker continued to dump chickens onto a malfunctioning belt in a poultry kill room.

Belt operators kept running the belt, even when the machine was malfunctioning. This caused more birds to be dumped onto the belt, even when it wasn’t moving.

According to a USDA inspector, this caused a large section of the belt was stacked four birds deep. This stacking caused most birds in lower layers to be smothered.

Following the incident, the USDA recommended that facility workers were trained on handling malfunctioning belts.

On August 12th, 2021- a second incident, similar to the one in July, resulted in more smothered chickens. The number from this incident was redacted from the USDA document.

 

Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash
Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash
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A Cat Food Shortage?

Food shortages are nothing new. We have been seeing a lot of empty shelves since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

With that being said, it comes as no surprise that there have been shortages of pet food throughout the country. So, what’s making it so difficult to find food for our furry friends?

According to Market Realist, a shortage in packing materials has gotten in the way for canned cat food companies such as Friskies. There is also the challenge of getting products to stores- something driver shortages haven’t been helping. And of course, we have the hoarders making it more difficult to even find products on the shelves.

Nestle, who owns Purina, the company that makes Friskies, said that the Pandemic caused pet food sales to go up, increasing the demand for the products.

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