Wow, if my calculations are correct, and if the Carroll County Times is correct, a new chicken operation of some sort moving into Taneytown will send somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 chickens to their death over the next ten years.
And they’re not even for eating.
Rather, they’ll lay eggs, and when their 65 week “life cycle” is over they’ll be “taken to a rendering plant to be made into pet food.” Rendering, of course, meaning killed, chopped up, and packaged to feed our dogs and cats. Not all will be so lucky, though. If they die before their day of rendering, they’ll be incinerated on the premises.
So Carroll County’s getting an incinerator after all.
And of course, if you consider the living conditions of the chickens, 14,000 packed into a room for 65 weeks, maybe an early incineration is the way to go.
SPF Sentinel Hens
Here’s how it works according to the Times.
The company was originally planning to build two hen houses, each 189-by-135-feet, to house 14,000 hens each, with the possibility of expanding by two more buildings of similar size in the future, Studyvin said.
However, costs for the project were higher than expected, he said, and in late December the work was put on hold while the plans could be revised and scaled back. The new plan is to build just one building with three rooms, he said. A flock of 14,000 hens will be on each end of the building, he said, with the center room serving as a nursery to raise chicks from birth to about five weeks, when they would be ready to move into the next room for the rest of their duration at the facility to lay eggs.
Each flock of 14,000 hens has a life cycle of about 65 weeks, he said. At the end of that time, the flock will be taken to a rendering plant to be made into pet food. The nursery within the building would have a younger flock ready to take their place, Studyvin said, so for about a five-week overlap each year, there could be as many as 42,000 birds in the building at one time.
So who’s behind the new Taneytown chicken operation?
VALO BioMedia North America, the company that is planning to build the egg processing facility, is part of a German-owned company that operates four similar facilities in central Iowa.
The eggs produced by the chickens at their farms are U.S. Department of Agriculture classified as “specific pathogen free,”
VALO BioMedia farm in Adel, Iowa
a term that means that these eggs can be used for certain medical and research purposes, such as the development of vaccines.
None of that medical or research work will take place at the Taneytown egg farm, said T.J. Studyvin, operations manager for VALO BioMedia North America. But the farm will have much more strict protocol than a traditional farming operation to protect the biosecurity of their product.
So, if I understand this correctly, no one will be eating the eggs, either. It sounds like they’ll be shipped out for medical work. In fact, here’s what the company says on their website.
With our products Specific Pathogen Free Eggs and Clean Eggs VALO BioMedia contributes substantially to the worldwide production of vaccines for both, human and veterinary purposes. Besides that VALO SPF Eggs are widely used for research and diagnostics.
As the worldmarket leader VALO BioMedia is an important supplier of an important raw material for the pharmaceutical industry and helps to protect human and animal health.
Not in Our Backyard
SPF Chicken eggs
Fortunately, this is not in our backyard here in the Freedom area. It’s in Taneytown’s, and as the article points out, not all of the residents, or any actually, are happy about it. The good news is the plant will create 6 to 10 jobs. Yay!
The bad news is that for some residents it’s not actually in the backyard. It’s right across the street.
Melissa and Todd Hahn had no idea that a neighboring landowner had subdivided the farm across the street from their home on Roop Road in Taneytown until they saw the earthmovers roll in and start digging.
And when they started asking questions, they learned that while the land was still zoned as agricultural, two large buildings were going to be built to house 14,000 chickens each. Having heard stories about the smell and potentially dangerous nutrient loads in chicken manure, as well as concerns about the multiple wells being drilled on the property and likely tapping into the same underground aquifer, the Hahns were worried.
The Hahns contacted the company, which currently operates in Iowa, and met face to face with some of the company’s leaders in their own living room. The plan specifics that were discussed with residents in late November and early December have since changed, but the Hahns feel no more at ease. They now have a “for sale by owner” sign in front of their house, and hope that they can move out before the new business moves in.
“It’s a neighborhood to us on this road — why not go out to the rolling hills of Hagerstown where nobody lives?” Hahn said.
This doesn’t sound like a case of the so-called NIMBY syndrome. It’s just a case of some people who don’t want a German chicken plant incinerating birds across the street. Not really out of concern for the chickens, mind you, but concern for their own well-being. And yeah, property values.
Read the rest at the CC Times. I left out the part about the deep wells and formaldehyde.
One last quote.
A small incinerator, which looks similar to a smoker grill, will be kept on the property to dispose of chickens that die naturally before the rest of the flock is taken to a rendering plant, he said.
No chickens dies naturally when packed into a room with 13,999 others.
Ever see “Chicken Run?” Where’s Ginger? Where’s Rocky the flying rooster? It’s time for a breakout. Taneytown needs you.
