Case #1
And case #2
Posted on 06/29/2005 7:09:36 PM PDT by bayourod
Federal officials said today the second confirmed case of mad cow was a cow born and raised in Texas.
The 12-year old cow was incinerated at a pet-food-supply plant in Waco, the US Department of Agriculture said. The plant identified the cow as a downer — a sick animal no longer able to walk — was destroyed before it could be used.
The cow likely contracted the brainwasting disease from feed it ate before the ruminant-to ruminant feed ban implemented in 1997, according to the USDA. Such feed, which includes cattle parts, can spread the disease.
Officials would not release the name of the Texas town where the cow was born. The federal agency is seeking animals born at place around that time, as well as some of their offspring, to see if others contracted the disease.
Federal rules ban the slaughter of downer cattle for human food.
An initial screening test on tissue gathered from the cow last November indicated the it should be tested further. Two followup tests suggested it did not have the disease and USDA officials declared the animal free of the disease.
Further testing done at the behest of the department's internal watchdog this month showed the animal did in fact have the disease, as did test by a laboratory in Weybridge, England.
Many beef producers want to test independently of the government, but of course our government gives it a big thumbs down.
Why will it not say from which herd it came from?
Why will they not release the breed type?
How many cattlemen in Texas feed their animals feed consisting of neurological tissue from other ruminants?
Something here does not add up to reason.
I was thinking the same thing. I noticed that the animal was terminated in Waco so the farm was probably close by. Could it be the animal came from a herd near or in Crawford?
My last question was meant to be rhetorical..."How many TExas cattlemen fed their cattle feed laced with neurological tissue?.....The answer......None or damn few.
Just the same, I would like to know how many other animals, along with their histories, that also ate that feed.
I don't believe it.
As a Canadian the issue is frustrating. Bush wanted to open the border to our beef again, but a Montana judge ruled against it. How does a Montana judge make a ruling for the entire US border? Or am I confused?
I have fed cattle for the past 20 years. Mine are beef cattle. They were fed breeders cubes, 3/1 meal, "Sweet Feed" or horse and mule, and hay. My father did the same and his father before him. I do not know here in east TExas where you would obtain feed which has neurological tissue. Perhaps it is or was out there, but I have never fed it. (Occassionally we would feed cotton seed meal if it got really cold and wet.)
It actually is better than I thought because it could have contracted the disease before the new laws. I thought it was younger and could have contracted it afterwards.
So, then you don't believe the neurological tissue story?
They say it ate some cow before 1997, when it was banned for feed.
They tracked Mad Cow to Texas? How hard could it be? I thought it was public knowledge that Molly Ivins lives there.
Yes, it does occur spontaneously in nature. There have been problems with a variant form of the disease in elk (and I believe deer) in Colorado. Scary stuff.
This cow was at a dogfood processing plant, never considered for human consumption. Even the dogfood plant rejected it because of obvious illness.
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