who's hungry?

Factory farms don't make the news too often. And for good reason - they're gross.
I won't go into all the details about how chicks' beaks are sawed off because otherwise they would peck each other to death when they develop psychosis from confinement... or the environmental degradation that occurs from the amount of energy needed to 'produce' a cow... or the amount of fecal waste generated (canadian livestock produced approximately 164 billion kilograms of manure in 2001. This amount of manure would fill Toronto's SkyDome stadium 103 times per year, almost twice per week. Ok, ok, this is a detail)... or how living, feeling mammals are kept in a moribund limbo. It will probably make you sad and spreading sadness is not my business.
But factory farms are in the news these days, mostly because of a new outbreak of the dreaded H5N1, or avian bird flu at a turkey farm in the UK.
Albeit the most widely reported, this is not the first outbreak of H5N1 this year. In January 3000 geese were destroyed in Hungary because of an outbreak.
Also, aside from an outbreak of H5N1 in people and birds earlier this year, as many as 20% of the cats in Indonesia might carry the virus.
So far, 160 people worldwide have died of the disease. The good news is that the recent UK outbreak has shown how quickly people are ready to react. The slaughter of 159, 000 turkeys will be completed today, hopefully eradicating the disease from the area.
What a relief.
Let's get me a turkey burger and a side of pork rinds.