Posted on 01/01/2014 5:56:02 PM PST by fella
(Reuters) - The U.S. beef industry's dependence on the muscle-building drug Zilmax began unraveling here, on a sweltering summer day, in the dusty cattle pens outside a Tyson Foods Inc slaughterhouse in southeastern Washington state.
As cattle trailers that had traveled up to four hours in 95-degree heat began to unload, 15 heifers and steers hobbled down the ramps on August 5, barely able to walk. The reason: The animals had lost their hooves, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture documents reviewed by Reuters. The documents show the 15 animals were destroyed.
The next day, the hottest day of the month, two more animals with missing hooves arrived by truck. Again, the animals were destroyed, the documents show.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
great, it leaves so much more quality meat for the rest of us....good luck with your free range stuff (whatever that means)
My sister lost her beloved “Keystone” a few years ago, fed only expensive, upscale dog food. Kidneys went and he was a young, healthy dog. Vet said it was almost certainly tainted dog food from China and he’d seen it before. She cried her eyes out.
I fed my shih-tzu the jerky dog treats that ended up being on the “tainted” list but I, and my dog were lucky.
I too make my own dog food now — haven’t made the treats you describe, neither of my dogs will eat anything with sweet potato, apples or blueberries, unfortunately, only meet and greens. They are surely spoiled dogs but they protect our home and us and have brought us years of love and joy.
And this is before pink slime is added . . .
We need to ban all pharmaceuticals.
This sorcerer’s apprentice boondoggles have to be stopped.
God got it wrong, but Big Pharma will fix it.
Cattle normally live in 110+ degree heat and do just fine.
Heat cannot make cattle’s hooves fall off, trust me.
Oh look, here's a PDF on a common problem in the area.
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/eoarc/sites/default/files/abouthome/scientists/documents/DWB29.pdf
Severe symptoms can result in sloughing of hooves and tails. These clinical signs, though more apparent during hot weather, can occur at any time of the year.
>> “We need more people raising buffalo.” <<
.
That’ll keep ex-Lax in business!
Buffalo isn’t healthy to consume in great quantities, not enough fat.
The drugs are the cause of the disease.
The heat, if anything will help the cattle resist the damage.
No, it’s the fungi that infects grass seed straw which is a cheap feed in the PNW because so much grass seed is grown here.
They use to burn the grass seed fields, but this is increasing restricted so now the straw is baled and sold.
Buffalo mature slowly, require high fences and are hard to handle. And if the dangerous animals get over fences, they risk being shot by neighbors. Some folks with safari type operations in corrupt jurisdictions enjoy raising buffalo, though—places where city folks can pay lots of cash to play the great hunter by shooting buffalo in little pens.
Oh, and remember that lefties get mad at people who don’t call them “bison.” ;-)
Yaks are bad enough.
No, the drug destroys the cattle’s immune systems, leaving them susceptible to things that normally would have no effect on them. Just like humans.
Ryegrass staggers and Fescue foot predate this drug by decades, more likely by centuries if not millenia. Ergot poisoning from rye bread effects humans as well.
It has nothing to do with the immune system since it is a toxin, it’s all about the dosage.
It’s become a problem in the PNW because fescue and ryegrass are popular grass seed that is grown by the ton here and the drought resistant varieties seem to be particularly prone to toxicity.
Bison is better than beef...
Sounds like to me the cattle were fed “hot” feed and they foundered, thereby losing their hooves. Zilmax may have contributed to the foundering but it can happen in any situation where cattle are pushed to grow using a feed that will digest easily by bacteria. Its the side effect of the bacterial toxins that cause vasoconstriction and the loss of the hooves. Ryegrass and fescue cause vasoconstriction of the vessels in the lamina causing laminitis and I suspect that Zilmax created the environment for this to happen in a small number of cattle being fed a “hot” diet. Its a good bet Merck never saw this phenomenon on the test animals before they released the drug for public use.
Pepsi Throwback. All sugar.
Poor animals! Their hooves have disintegrated. That drug should be pulled off the market.
$10.99 per pound for natural porterhouse cut steaks at a small town local butcher. Free range ranch cattle, and the steaks are naturally dark colored, not that artificial bright red you see in the big box stores.
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