Farmers are being forced to shoot and gas thousands of animals a day, devastating their business amid meat shortages

• Farmers across the Midwest are euthanizing their stocks of pigs and chickens because of a backlog caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
• Farmers are suffering economic and psychological consequences as they slaughter large numbers of animals.
• As pigs grow to be too large and numerous, farmers are forced to shoot, gas, and inject their animals.
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The meat-packing industry is struggling to keep supply chains running as usual during the coronavirus pandemic, forcing Midwest pig farmers to euthanize huge portions of their stock, according to a report by The New York Times' Michael Corkery and David Yaffe-Bellany.

Slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants have been some of the worst hotbeds of COVID-19 outbreaks with hundreds of workers falling ill. Many processing plants shut down, including Smithfield Food, a foremost pork-processing center in South Dakota.

Slaughterhouses' decline in production creates issues on both ends of the supply chain, sparking shortages at grocery stores during a time when many are struggling to eat as layoffs reach historical highs, but also leaving farmers with a surplus of livestock.

For farmers in Iowa, Minnesota, and other Midwestern states, they have had little choice but to euthanize the backlog of animals, which means gassing or shooting thousands of pigs in a day, according to The New York Times.

The financial and emotional repercussions on the farmers are profound. Some farmers lose as much as $390,000 in a day, said the report. So far 90,000 pigs have been killed in Minnesota alone.

The pigs these farmers raise grow up to 300 pounds for commercial meatpacking but if they grow much bigger they become too dangerous for slaughterhouses, according to the Times. That's why farmers are trying to pare down their pig's diet and sell smaller pigs to local butchers and hunters.

But for some farmers' stock, it's still inadequate and they must resort to killing piglets and aborting baby pigs to slow the ever-growing crop of animals, according to the Times.

Pig farmers aren't the only ones dealing with decisions like this; chicken farmers recently euthanized millions of their birds.