Cool Hand Meats, a Marion, N.C. company that slaughtered animals from the Foothills Pilot Plant facility, shut down last month for a lack of capital. That closing has affected many small poultry farms who were counting on its services in time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season, reports the Citizen-Times.

Hickory Nut Gap Farm, located in Asheville, doesn’t have any alternative except do the processing itself, as the nearest USDA-approved slaughterhouses are in Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas and Alabama.

Read the article, which details the problems behind the shutdown and how the North Carolina Department of Agriculture is trying to help its farmers, here: http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2017/11/02/marion-plant-closes-near-thanksgiving-threatening-poultry-business/816963001/

Source: Citizen-Times