Cattle slaughter winds down at Tyson's Kansas plant

CHICAGO, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN.N) said it has begun phasing out cattle slaughter at its Emporia, Kansas, beef plant, with the second shift of cattle slaughter ending on Wednesday and the second shift of beef processing to end on Friday.

Last week, Tyson said it was discontinuing cattle slaughter at the plant because of unfavorable market conditions and more beef industry slaughter capacity than available cattle.

Ending of cattle slaughter at the plant and scaling back beef production will result in the elimination of about 1,500 of the plant's 2,400 jobs.

No date has been set to end the first-shift of cattle slaughter. The plant has a daily slaughter capacity of 4,000 head.

(Reporting by Bob Burgdorfer; Editing by David Gregorio)