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Las Vegas pigs once again dining on casino scraps
About 90% of the pigs’ diet comes from casino food scraps but when the pandemic shut down major strip hotels, thousands of pigs went hungry. (Credit: KVVU)
LAS VEGAS - Pigs in Las Vegas are once again feeding off of casino scraps after going without during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 closed many hotels and restaurants on the strip, limiting food that was sent to nearby livestock farms. That left many farmers struggling to feed their pigs.
According to KVVU, about 90% of the pigs’ diet comes from casino food scraps.
Now that restaurants are back up and running, pigs are now feasting again.
"This month, on Friday, we will actually reach the number of pigs that we had pre-pandemic," farm manager Sarah Stallard told the news outlet.
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Stallard said she had to rely on warehouses to feed her animals.
"We worked with a lot more warehouses," she continued. "During the pandemic that was very helpful because they were trying to get rid of food that they had planned to ship out during that 2020 time so that helped us get through that."
Stallard said she will continue to work with warehouses despite Las Vegas bouncing back from the COVID-19 pandemic.
"If they have supply chain disruptions where they are not able to get those supplies out and have to recycle it where it is not safe for human consumption per say but pigs are more hearty," she added.
Stallard said her farm gets daily casino scraps from Las Vegas hotels like the Cosmopolitan, Mandalay Bay and Venetian.
"As concerts came back and things like that, we saw a lot more food coming in and so it is a much higher influx more regularly," she said.
This story was reported from Los Angeles.