Kansas Poultry Farm Loses 4,300 Turkeys in Heat Wave

AP2011An unidentified pedestrian walks past a time as well as temperature pointer in Lawrence, Kan., Monday, July 11, 2011. Heat advisories as well as excessive-heat warnings were issued Monday for 17 states in a Midwest as well as South. WICHITA, Kan.-- A feverishness wave that has pushed temperatures well over 100 degrees has killed tens of thousands of turkeys as well as chickens in Kansas as well as North Carolina as well as left farmers across a lower part of a country struggling to cool off their flocks. In North Carolina, about 50,000 chickens died during a farm after a power went off for less than an hour. In Kansas, one couple lost 4,300 turkeys that took 26 hours to bury. "It felt similar to a war zone. It felt similar to hell," turkey grower Holly Capron said. The feverishness wave that started over a weekend has been spreading east. Four of a nation's top turkey-producing states -- Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina as well as Virginia -- were under a feverishness advisory Tuesday. Arkansas as well as North Carolina are also leading duck producers. Temperatures in Kansas upon Sunday reached 110 degrees, with a feverishness index of 118. It was 106 in a buildings near Columbus where Capron as well as her husband raise 22,000 turkeys for Butterball LLC. She pronounced they've been running big fans as well as fog nozzles in their ornithology buildings, as well as they've had a tractor pulling a spray wagon to water down a birds. They lost 140 birds upon Saturday, but nothing prepared them for Sunday, when 4,300 died. After receiving approval from state regulators, a Caprons, their workers as well as friends began digging a massive hole -- 60 feet long, 40 feet wide as well as 10 feet deep -- to bury a nearly 50-pound birds. They started during 11 p.m. Sunday, as well as a last turkey was buried 26 hours later. The crew worked around a clock. No one slept. "It was literally overwhelming during a night," Capron said. "I honestly wante! d to sta rt crying. My husband was in shock." She blamed a deaths upon a feverishness spike that hit about 5:30 p.m. Sunday. The Kansas Department of Agriculture's Division of Animal Health confirmed that heat, not disease, caused a deaths, department spokeswoman Chelsea Good said. In North Carolina, a feverishness wave killed about 50,000 broiler chickens during a Johnston County farm when a power went out for about 45 minutes, pronounced Gary Rhodes, a spokesman for Colorado-based Pilgrim's Pride Corp., which owned a chickens. Farmers in a Carolinas outfit their ornithology barns with cooling systems that use fans to push mists of water over a birds or pull air through a sheds during high speed similar to an air tunnel. The cooling systems have prevented family-owned turkey growers Prestage Farms from suffering a mass die-off from feverishness for more than five years, pronounced co-owner Scott Prestage. "If outside a feverishness index is during 107, similar to it is right this minute, a bird in that house is feeling something that tends to be in a midst to high 80-degree range," pronounced Prestage, whose operations produce more than 425 million pounds of live turkey a year in North Carolina as well as South Carolina. "We tend not to lose birds in those houses, not as long as all a equipment is handling properly." A power outage, though, can be deadly. "With a new ventilation systems in these houses, they can handle a feverishness pretty good," pronounced Bob Ford, executive director of a North Carolina Poultry Federation. "Most everybody's converted their houses to that type of system, as well as we just have to keep your fingers crossed I guess." John Bryan, spokesman for a Missouri Poultry Federation, a trade organization, pronounced he hadn't heard of a feverishness causing similar problems in Missouri. But he pronounced producers are vigilant during a summer, making sure a turkeys move around as well as get plenty of water. "It's sum! mer in M issouri, as well as they know a routine," Bryan said. "They're constantly out checking their flocks. They've got field managers as well as that's what they do every day. They all watch them a little more closely because it's such a feverishness wave. ... It's a same with a duck people. They're out there watching." One thing farmers watch for, he said, is making sure a turkeys haven't bunched up together in a heat, which can cause them to smother. "A lot of them will just get in a pile," Bryan pronounced "They do sometimes get by a doors, which may be will have a breeze, as well as sometimes they'll just get in a heap."