A heat wave affecting the Midwest and East Coast has killed thousands of turkeys and chickens and has left farmers struggling to cool off their flocks in temperatures surpassing 100 degrees.
In Kansas, temperatures reached 110 degrees with a heat index of 118. One farm lost 4,300 turkeys that Holly Capron and her husband were raising for Butterball. She said that the farm had been running fans and fog nozzles in the poultry buildings, and a tractor pulling a spray wagon helped water down the birds. The farm’s crew worked around the clock for 26 hours to bury the birds, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.