Ventilation shutdown (VSD) is a means to kill

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

suffocation Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects all the tissues and organs, some more rapidly than others. There are m ...

and

heat stroke Heat stroke or heatstroke, also known as sun-stroke, is a severe heat illness that results in a body temperature greater than , along with red skin, headache, dizziness, and confusion. Sweating is generally present in exertional heatstro ...

in which airways to the building in which the livestock are kept are cut off. It is used for mass killing — usually to prevent the spread of diseases such as

avian influenza Avian influenza, also known as avian flu or bird flu, is a disease caused by the influenza A virus, which primarily affects birds but can sometimes affect mammals including humans. Wild aquatic birds are the primary host of the influenza A viru ...

. Animal rights organizations have called the practice unethical. The addition of

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

or additional heat to the enclosure is known as ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+).

History

The term ventilation shutdown appears to have originated in 2006 from the United Kingdom

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for environmental quality, environmenta ...

. The practice was first permitted in the UK on April 29th, 2006. In the United States, approval to use ventilation shutdown was given in 2015. In 2020, supply chain disruptions from the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

led to many meat plant closures and in turn backup in slaughtering. In response, millions of US farm animals were killed via mass depopulation methods with ventilation shutdown often being chosen. The ongoing 2020-2022 H5N8 avian influenza outbreak has led to millions of birds being killed via ventilation shutdown. In March 2022, one of the world's largest egg farms, Rembrandt Enterprises, used ventilation shutdown to kill 5.3 million chickens after the appearance of an avian influenza case.

Controversy

The practice of ventilation shutdown has been called cruel by many animal welfare and animal right groups such as the

Humane Society of the United States Humane World for Animals, formerly the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Humane Society International (HSI), is a global nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scop ...

. The process takes hours of high heat with one study putting the number between 1.5-3.75 hours for the egg industry. Environmental temperatures as high as 170 °F have been recorded in facilities where VSD has been used. In known recordings of the practice for pigs, sustained screaming and signs of distress were observed. The widespread use of VSD is attributable by many, in part, due to the

American Veterinary Medical Association The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) is an American not-for-profit association founded in 1863 that represents more than 105,000 veterinarians. The AVMA provides information resources, continuing education opportunities, publicat ...

(AVMA) publicly classifying ventilation shutdown's use as "acceptable under constrained circumstances". While unable to directly control if VSD is implemented, the AVMA's recommendations are often followed and used in determining legislation. Some people, such as the veterinarian Crystal Heath, have cited close ties between the meat industry and the AVMA as influencing their classification. There has been a campaign by organizations such the Veterinarians Against Ventilation Shutdown to get VSD reclassified as "not recommended" by the AVMA.

References

Livestock Ethically disputed business practices towards animals Animal culling {{Animal rights

History

Controversy

See also

References