Chicks Raised to Lay Eggs Are Lost in Fire at a Large Farm in Ohio
A fire tore through a large commercial farm in western Ohio this week that was housing hundreds of thousands of chickens raised to lay eggs, dealing another blow to a state egg industry that was already reeling from the effects of an Avian influenza outbreak.Fire and state officials did not specify how many birds died in the fire.Ohio is one of the largest egg-farming states in the nation, producing some 10 billion eggs a year, according to a coalition of state farmers.The onset of avian influenza in the United States in 2022 has killed off millions of egg-laying chickens, raising prices and leading to nationwide shortages.Most of those outbreaks took place in western Ohio, including in Darke County, the site of the fire.Firefighters were dispatched after 6 a.m.
on Tuesday to New Madison Pullets, on the outskirts of the village of New Paris near the Indiana border, said Chief Robert Cook of the New Madison Volunteer Fire Department.Firefighters from four counties in Ohio and two counties in Indiana deployed equipment and personnel, working through bitter cold, snow and thick smoke as they struggled to tap ice-covered natural water sources, Chief Cook said in an interview.By the time the fire was extinguished, at about 1 p.m.Tuesday, it had destroyed a main building that was holding thousands of chickens.“It was a total loss,” he said.The barn where the fire occurred had a permit to hold 280,000 pullets, Brian Baldridge, the director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, said on Friday.
Pullets are chicks that are raised until they are 16- to 18-weeks-old, and then are transferred to other facilities as egg-laying hens.Mr.
Baldridge said he did not know how many were lost in the blaze.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for y...