Slaughterhouses reopen; pigs stil being euthanized

Meatpacking plants that had to briefly close due to coronavirus outbreaks have been back up and running for weeks, but production backlogs are forcing farmers to euthanize thousands of hogs that can’t be processed, drawing complaints from animal welfare advocates.

In Iowa, where nearly one-third of the nation’s hogs are raised, the temporary closure of slaughterhouses led to a backup of about 600,000 pigs, state Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig said. Those plants now are operating at about 80% capacity, but that’s not enough to clear the backlog, and efforts to sell directly to consumers or process hogs at small slaughterhouses for donation to food banks aren’t enough to avoid euthanizing some animals.

Adding to the problem was the temporary closure Thursday of another hog processing plant in Storm Lake, Iowa, because of a coronavirus outbreak.

“That backlog is larger than those solutions can address, so producers are already having to and will continue to have to look at the very difficult and emotional decision to euthanize their animals to prevent animal welfare issues,” Naig said.

Farmers say they’re left with no choice but to euthanize hogs because they haven’t been able to ship out some animals for more than a month, and as they become larger and young pigs grow, there isn’t enough space in the buildings that house them. Slaughterhouses also aren’t designed to efficiently process hogs once they get too large, so farmers have few options.