By STAN MADDUX

Indiana Correspondent

MILLERSBURG, Ind. — Open burning and strong winds resulted in the deaths of 11,000 meat ducks in a northern Indiana farm fire.

The birds were raised by an Amish contractor for Culver Duck, a commercial processor of more than 5 million White Pekin ducks annually at its plant near Millersburg. Drew Frey, director of live production for the company, said half the ducks were old enough to be ready for processing soon.

“We were about ready to bring those back to our plant,” Frey said; the rest were ducklings.

He said all the birds were inside one barn on the property of Lamar Yoder, who had a horse barn and shop also go up in flames. No other animals perished, officials said. According to investigators, Yoder was doing some open burning that got out of control and high winds quickly spread the flames from building to building.

Frey said the previous owner was also a supplier for Culver Duck. About five years ago, Yoder became a supplier when he purchased the property and started making improvements, he said. “It was kind of a fixer-upper when he bought it.”

He doesn’t expect Yoder to be out of business for long. The Amish community, keeping with a long tradition, is getting behind Yoder’s young family to do a complete rebuild, which might take anywhere from 4-6 weeks.

“It was a pretty devastating loss for him. That’s a big part of his livelihood,” said Frey.

Culver Duck, which is also helping in the recovery, processes about 25,000 ducks per day. Its product winds up in supermarkets and restaurants mostly in large metropolitan areas like Chicago, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Ducks from the company are also distributed to Florida and the Southwest.

Frey said all of its suppliers are from Indiana within roughly a 150-mile radius of the plant.

According to the USDA, more than 70 percent of 26.7 million ducks produced in the United States during 2017 came from Indiana. California and Pennsylvania were the next-largest producers.

Culver Duck is owned by Joe Jurgielewicz & Son, LTD out of Shartlesville, Pa. The parent company has raised and processed ducks at the same location in the eastern part of the state for more than 30 years. The Pennsylvania location also partners with more than 20 outside suppliers, officials said.

According to the company, the family has been raising duck since 1933 when Joe’s grandparents, Bronislaw and Katarzyna Jurgielewicz, emigrated from Poland and soon established a farm in Long Island, N.Y. More than 200 people work at each of the plants in Indiana and Pennsylvania.

Frey said the ducks in Indiana are raised under humane conditions similar to the parent plant’s of free-roaming and temperature-controlled. “We feel pretty good about what we do here,” he said.