XPost: alt.gossip.celebrities, alt.politics.democrats.d, sac.general   
   XPost: alt.rush-limbaugh   
   From: bad-news-for-democrats@cnn.com   
      
   A Minnesota contract egg farmer said 61,000 of his chickens were   
   euthanized amid falling demand for eggs.   
      
   Closures of schools, restaurants and caterers has trickled down   
   to farming, affecting egg producers as well as demand for milk   
   and ripe lettuce. Kerry Mergen, who works near Albany Minn.,   
   told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that Daybreak Foods, which   
   owned and paid to feed the chickens, made the decision after a   
   fluid egg plant in Big Lake temporarily shut down last week and   
   laid off 300 workers.   
      
   Mergen told the Star-Tribune a crew of about 15 workers arrived   
   in the early hours of April 9 with carbon dioxide to euthanize   
   the birds.   
      
   "They come in with carts, put them all in carts, wheel them up   
   to the end, put a hose in that cart and gas them, then dump them   
   over the edge into a conveyor and convey them up into semis and   
   the semis haul them out," he said.   
      
   "I was in there for quite a while and the longer I was there the   
   more disgusted and disappointed I was knowing that I'm not going   
   to see anything put back in my checkbook again, so after a while   
   I just simply left,” he added.   
      
   "It is important to note that food-service orders have not   
   stopped, but with the decline in food-service orders, Cargill   
   and its egg suppliers are working diligently to rebalance supply   
   to match these consumer and customer shifts," Cargill said in a   
   statement, according to the newspaper.   
      
   Mergen said four other egg farms saw chickens euthanized in the   
   state in recent weeks, saying the other four were larger than   
   his. An official at the state Board of Animal Health told the   
   newspaper livestock producers are not required to report   
   euthanizing animals in large numbers.   
      
   Mergen’s wife Barb, a food service worker in St. Cloud, said the   
   income represented by the chickens would hurt more than the   
   killings.   
      
   "Don't sugarcoat it. It is what it is," she told the Star-   
   Tribune. "It's painless for the birds. I don't have a thing   
   against that, but it's just that someone can come in so quickly   
   and when they euthanized the birds, that was our paycheck   
   euthanized."   
      
   The Hill has reached out to Daybreak for comment.   
      
   https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/494027-farmer-   
   says-his-61000-chickens-were-euthanized-as-demand-for   
         
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)