Nearly three years since the first H5N1 outbreak in U. S. poultry, the USDA has concluded that the agency’s compensation system has not worked as it intended. By giving chicken farmers a lot of money with few conditions, the system has accidentally lowered the financial risk of biosecurity failures on farms, which has helped the virus spread. In other words, farmers have not been effectively incentivized to make changes to protect their flocks.
As the outbreak has continued to spread, the government bailout of the poultry industry has ballooned too. As of January 22nd, 2025, APHIS has doled out $1. 46 billion in indemnity payments and additional compensation over the outbreak’s course, according to a figure provided to Sentient by a USDA spokesperson. This includes $1. 138 billion for the loss of culled eggs and birds and $326 million for measures to prevent the virus’s spread.
Government spending records show that a big chunk (301 million) of the indemnity payments have gone to just four producers.
The Minnesota-based Jennie-O Turkey Store has been the biggest recipient of compensation payments. Since the start of the H5N1 outbreak in 2022, the well-known turkey brand has gotten $120 million. Herbruck’s Poultry Ranch, which supplies McDonald’s cage-free eggs, has received the second largest bailout at $89 million. Center Fresh Egg Farm, part of a group of farms owned by Versova, one of the largest U. S. egg producers, has received $46 million. (This information shows how much each company is legally required to pay in compensation. This means that the USDA may not have yet given these payments in full.) ).
By comparison, when the first outbreak of avian flu swept the U.S. between 2014 and 2015, farmers and producers received just over $200 million in indemnity payments.
“The current regulations do not provide a sufficient incentive for producers in control areas or buffer zones to maintain biosecurity throughout an outbreak,” APHIS stated in December, which introduced new emergency guidelines in an attempt to remedy this incentive problem.
One of the preferred methods farms use to cull birds is by sealing off the air flow to the barn and then pumping in heat or carbon dioxide. Known as Ventilation Shutdown Plus (VSD+), this is a cheap way to kill an entire flock by heat stroke or suffocation, and is approved by the USDA for indemnity payments only under “constrained circumstances.” The top 10 recipients of indemnity payments all used VSD+ to often exterminate millions of birds at once, according to APHIS records obtained by Crystal Heath, a veterinarian and the executive director of Our Honor, through a FOIA request.
By compensating farmers for VSD+, this system has helped make what many animal welfare advocates consider an unnecessarily cruel death part of the industry standard.
The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) recently released a draft of new guidelines for depopulation, which notes when the heat fails, VSD+ can result in an “unacceptable numbers of survivors” — birds that are severely injured, but not yet dead, and then need to be killed by another means. Yet the AVMA’s draft guidelines, closely relied upon by the USDA, still include this method as an option.
Some animal protection advocates contend that poultry companies should not receive indemnity payments at all, regardless of biosecurity, arguing that the industry should be responsible for its own losses.
“Why should this high-risk business be bailed out?” Heath, a longtime critic of AVMA’s guidelines, tells Sentient. As an animal protection advocate, Heath has also been closely tracking indemnity payments throughout this outbreak. “What we’re seeing is the largest corporations are receiving the most in indemnity payments, and they’re using the most brutal methods of depopulation,” referring to the culling methods.
The bailout is set to only expand as H5N1 spreads, prompting the mass culling of more domestic flocks, in what has become the largest foreign animal disease outbreak in U.S. history. The egg industry continues to be roiled: over 20 million egg–laying chickens died from either culling or the virus in the final quarter of last year.
More recently, on January 17, 2025, HPAI was detected for the first time in a commercial poultry flock in Georgia, the top producer of poultry in the U.S., deepening concerns about the struggle to contain the prolonged outbreak.
Over the past few years there has been a concerning trend of chicken farms being destroyed across the United States. From barn fires to blown up processing plants, the chicken industry has faced catastrophic losses. But just how many chicken facilities have been impacted? Let’s take a look at the alarming statistics.
Frequent Chicken Farm Fires
On chicken farms, barn fires are happening more and more often. The Animal Welfare Institute has put together data on barn fires by state that shows how many chickens are dying in fires.
In 2024 alone, over 1.5 million farmed animals were killed in barn fires. The vast majority were chickens. States like North Carolina, Maryland, Illinois, and Iowa faced especially devastating fires last year. For example:
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In July 2024 a fire in California killed approximately 70,000 chickens.
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In April 2024 a barn fire in Illinois killed around 1.2 million chickens.
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In March 2024, over 5 million chickens died in a fire in Iowa.
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In November 2024, around 20,000 chickens perished in a North Carolina blaze.
Barn fires don’t just impact egg-laying hens. Meat chickens, turkeys, and other poultry are also frequent victims. Fire risks are increased by overcrowded barns, insufficient fire safety measures, and wooden barn structures. The frequency of fires shows more work is needed to protect birds on farms.
Blown Up Processing Plants
In addition to barn fires, full-scale processing plants with tens of thousands of chickens have been destroyed in explosions. For example:
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In February 2024, the Shearer’s Foods plant in Oregon exploded. While no exact numbers were given, the large facility processed chicken for major brands.
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Also in February 2024, a Bonanza Meat Company plant in Texas went up in flames. Again, no totals given but the plant processed chickens.
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In August 2024, a Taylor Farms plant in California burned down. The plant processed chicken products.
The reasons for these huge explosions at processing plants are still being looked into, but a lot of chickens are being killed. They also disrupt the supply chain and operations.
Mass Depopulations
Even without fires or explosions, some chicken farm operators have been forced to kill millions of birds in mass depopulations:
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As it shut down in April 2024, an Iowa factory killed more than 5 million chickens and fired hundreds of workers.
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Also in April 2024, Allen Harim Foods killed almost 2 million birds at its plant in Delaware.
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In May 2024, over 3 million chickens were destroyed at a Minnesota farm.
Depopulations result from disease outbreaks, financial issues, and other factors. But the sudden loss of millions of chickens further displays issues in the industry.
Hundreds of Thousands of Turkeys Impacted Too
Alongside chickens, turkeys raised on farms have also been impacted by fires, explosions, and mass depopulations over the past few years. A few examples:
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In March and April of 2024, over 600,000 turkeys were destroyed in Minnesota alone due to barn fires and depopulations.
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In May 2024, over 100,000 turkeys were killed in South Dakota fires and depopulations.
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Fires in Wisconsin and North Carolina also killed thousands of turkeys in 2024.
Key Takeaways
The number of chickens and turkeys killed in U.S. farm incidents is shockingly high:
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Barn fires frequently destroy thousands to millions of birds at a time.
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Processing plant explosions result in huge chicken losses.
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Mass depopulation events eradicate millions of chickens.
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Fires also impact turkeys on farms by the hundreds of thousands.
More needs to be done to protect the wellbeing of these animals and stabilize the poultry supply chain. But the data makes it clear – an alarming number of chickens, turkeys, and birds have died on U.S. farms in recent years due to largely preventable incidents. More oversight, updated infrastructure, and proactive steps could reduce the frequency of poultry farm catastrophes moving forward.
Too Indemnified to Fail: How Payments Can Incentivize Risk
The indemnity system was designed to incentivize producers to adopt practices that help curb the spread of the virus. As APHIS states, the payments are intended to “encourage prompt reporting of certain high consequence livestock and poultry diseases and to incentivize private biosecurity investment.” Biosecurity measures include a range of practices to prevent disease outbreaks, from latching dumpster lids and disinfecting equipment to more expensive measures, like installing netting and screens on barns to deter wild birds.
These biosecurity measures are especially critical given that H5N1 is most commonly introduced to poultry flocks through wild birds, according to a 2023 epidemiology analysis conducted by APHIS. The virus’s transmission from wild birds can happen either directly, or indirectly through contaminated feed, clothing and equipment.
By sheltering producers from risk, researchers have observed that indemnity payouts can, under some circumstances, inadvertently encourage lapses in biosecurity, enabling the spread of disease. And this can potentially create a system where farms are too indemnified to fail — the risks of operating a business highly susceptible to disease are absorbed by the government.
“What we are finding is that ‘unconditional indemnity’ disincentivizes livestock producers to adopt biosecurity because they know that if the disease strikes their system then they would be indemnified,” Asim Zia, a professor of public policy and computer science at the University of Vermont who researches livestock disease risk, tells Sentient. According to Zia, “unconditional indemnity” means indemnity payments with next-to-no requirements to qualify.
It remains to be seen whether APHIS’s new interim guidelines — which will require that some high-risk producers successfully pass a biosecurity audit prior to receiving indemnity — will be enough to remedy this issue and encourage producers to change. Unlike the previous system, the new audits will include a visual inspection of the premises, either virtually or in-person. However, the scope of the new rule is limited to large-scale commercial poultry facilities that have been previously infected with HPAI, or that are moving poultry onto a poultry farm in a “buffer zone,” a higher-risk region.
Other large-scale commercial facilities will still follow the earlier rule’s more lenient audit process. This requires an audit of a producers’ biosecurity plan on paper — not an inspection of the actual poultry farm — every two years. It has been remarkably easy for farmers to pass this audit: the failure rate of this program was zero, according to APHIS, which made it so there were effectively no strings attached to the payouts. And smaller-scale poultry operations are entirely off the hook, exempt from both rules, and even from developing a biosecurity plan.
In the past, APHIS has repeatedly bailed out many of the same poultry businesses, spending $227 million on indemnity payments to farms that have been infected with H5N1 multiple times. This has included 67 poultry businesses that have been affected at least twice, and 19 companies that have been infected at least three times, according to the agency’s own records.
APHIS has not released the names of the companies that have been repeatedly infected, though the indemnity payments provide a glimpse into this.
Take Cal-Maine Foods’ poultry farm in Farewell, Texas. On April 2, 2024, Texas’s Commissioner of Agriculture Sid Miller announced its flock tested positive for H5N1, requiring the culling of 1.6 million laying hens and 337,000 pullets. The very next day Cal-Maine Foods, headquartered in Mississippi, received an indemnity payment of $17 million for HPAI detected on the Texas operation, according to government spending data.
So many different farms have been destroyed
FAQ
How many chickens are slaughtered in the United States each day?
Every day in the U. S. , around *24 million chickens* are slaughtered for meat, that’s over *9 billion chickens* each year. These numbers are staggering and almost impossible to fathom. Recently, we hosted a couple who work at a medium sized family poultry processing facility.
How many chicken farms are in the US today?
164,099 chicken farms were in the U.S. in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available. S. , according to the Department of Agriculture. Mar 27, 2024.
How many chickens were destroyed in a Minnesota fire?
62–4/15/22 1,380 500 chickens were destroyed at an egg farm in Lancaster Minnesota Fire destroyed the nation’s leading independent distributor of organic food and healthy foods, Azure Standard, in Dufur, Oregon. Minnesota destroyed 339,000 turkeys between 64–4-19/22.
How many chickens were wiped out at a Minnesota farm?
55—4/12/22 259,000 chickens were wiped out at a Minnesota farm. East Conway Beef &, Pork Meat Market, in conway, New Hampshire, is destroyed by fire on July 4, 1813. Plane crashes into Idaho’s Gem State Processing, Idaho potato, and food processing plants on July 14, 1922.
How many chickens were destroyed at an egg farm in Minnesota?
2,000,000 chickens were destroyed at an egg farm in Minnesota between 66–4/20/22 General Mills destroyed by plane crash on 4/21/22 Minnesota destroyed 197,000 turkeys between 68–4/22/22 Minnesota: 200,000 turkeys killed between 69–4/23/22 70–4/25/22 1,501,200 chickens destroyed at egg farm Cache, Utah.
How many chickens were destroyed by a fire in North Carolina?
53–4/12/22: A farm in Wayne, North Carolina, killed 89,700 chickens. 54–4/12/22: An egg farm in Dixon, Nebraska, killed 1,746,900 hens. 55–4/12/22: A farm in Minnesota killed 259,000 chickens. 56–4/13/22: A fire destroyed East Conway Beef.
How many chickens were destroyed at a farm in Colorado?
1 366 200 chickens were destroyed at a farm in Weld, Colorado between 76 and 4/29/22 13 800 chickens were destroyed at a farm in Sequoia, Oklahoma between 77 and 4/30/22 78–5/3/22 58,000 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin 79–5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Beadle S Dakota Duck Farm Berks Pennsylvania: 80,000 ducks killed between 80–5/3/22.
How many chickens were killed at an egg farm?
At the Cecil, Maryland, egg farm, 663,400 chickens were killed on October 28. 915,900 chickens were killed at a Taylor, Iowa, egg farm on September 29, 10 and 22. 2 750 700 chickens were killed at a Jefferson, Wisconsin, egg farm on March 31st, 14th, and 22nd.