Due to the country’s power outages, South African farmers have been culling and dumping millions of chickens. Suppliers turn off electricity at regular intervals to conserve power, resulting in blackouts. The outages can linger several hours, and workers may struggle to keep freezers and slaughterhouses operational.

Farmers have been unable to slaughter the existing hens on their farms, which means there is no room for new ones. The industry has disposed of almost 10 million one-day-old hens in recent weeks, said Izaak Breitenbach, general manager of the South African Poultry Association.  They were unable to be replaced since the older hens had not been slaughtered and the houses had not been cleaned.

While the birds on the farms were unharmed by the outages, they are also culled because they become unsellable. When birds are not butchered, they grow larger and out of specification for consumers and fast-food restaurants. KFC closed some of its outlets due to a major chicken shortage caused by load shedding. If load shedding continues, other restaurants and retailers will face the same problems in the following weeks.