November 25, 2022
Big poultry companies made the news a couple of different times in the last week or so. I can't say they put their best foot forward. Tyson Foods CFO John Tyson was arrested after being found drunk in the bed of a college student when she returned home. Lock your doors, kids! https://nypost.com/2022/11/18/bodycam-footage-shows-arrest-of-tyson-cfo-john-tyson/
The Missouri Agriculture News noted there had been 10 outbreaks of avian flu in Missouri, totalling 435,000 cases among 6 commercial operations and 4 backyard flocks. Read between the lines, and you'll conclude that poor practices on 6 megafarms led to over 70,000 birds being destroyed on each farm. I'm gonna guess that each of those birds was crammed in with less than 2 square feet of space in a windowless metal barn.
Egg prices are up nearly 400%, in part to an operation in South Dakota that had to depopulate 800,000 egg laying birds with avian flu. Imagine the manure created by 800,000 birds--are you shocked to hear disease traveled rapidly through the barn?
For whatever it's worth, The Ugly Ostrich has a perfect zero score for both birds murdered because they caught the flu from unsanitary conditions and another perfect zero for the number of directors arrested in beds of young women who didn't want them there. We set the bar high.