The largest pork producer of Iowa has killed thousands of pigs with a gruesome mass-extermination method during the coronavirus oversupply.

The producers reportedly roasted and suffocated pigs to death.

The Iowa Select Farms was caught on cam using disturbing methods in so-called ventilation shutdown, where farmers closed off airways to the hogs and pumped hot steam into their barns overnight to slaughter them.

Images and videos of the incident were recovered.

According to reports, the footage shows how the pigs cried and succumbed to death at the temperatures, which reportedly went over 120 degrees.

An informant said:

They shut the ventilation fans off, and heat up the building. That’s what the plan is. It’s horrific as it is. They’ve been euthanizing the animals, it’s been a test in a sense. Piglets were killed off in a barn with gas generators.

According to reports, the farm started to use the execution method in April this year to depopulate the pigs after meat processing plants had to be shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The informant added:

The first day they shut off all the fans and turned the heat up and the hottest they could get the building was 120 degrees. After four to five hours, none of the animals were dead. There was an attempt to induce steam into the building, along with the heat and the ventilation shutdown, and that is how they ultimately perfected their VSD operation.

The Iowa Select Farms is still to respond to the acts that they did.