Ventilation shutdown

The term ventilation shutdown appears to have originated in 2006 from the United Kingdom Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. 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 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 2020-2023 H5N8 avian influenza outbreak 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. In February 2026, the Modernizing Depopulation Act was introduced in the Colorado General Assembly. It aimed to phase out VSD and VSD+ as mass killing method used for poultry disease control. On March 12th, the bill was postpone indefinitely. == 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. 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. == See also ==