Smell the money!

[francismilker]

My family and I just got back from a trip to Colorado yesterday and I thought I'd share my feedlot experience with you folks.

I'm not sure if you've ever had the luxury of traveling across the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma before, but it's hard to go too far without encountering the wonderful aroma of a comercial feed lot. I've decided after seeing the same three cows with their feet sticking up in the air and bloated on the way up there and then four days later on the way back that health isn't too important at some of these places. While I realize they're dealing with several thousand head versus my 10 head of cattle, I'd think that having dead critters laying there would be a health hazard to the others around it.

[copperhead46]

Oh my Lord..........isn't that the most horrible sight in the world !!! People would never eat another commercial beef if they got a good whiff of what those poor cattle live in, before they are butchered. Thats why they have to keep them shot so full of antibiotics, they would all be dead from all the disease................ackkkkkk, feedlots are so ugly. Ok, I'm through ranting now............
Did you have a good vacation?? I love Colorado. I wondered why you didn't congratulate me on my new Jersey cow, now I know you were off in another state.
P.J.

[haypoint]

In most states it is illegal to leave a dead cow around for more than 24 hours. Someone should turn them into the Department of Ag. But I guess if we oppose government involvement in farming, we might prefer to turn out backs on such violations.

Last Wednesday, I was driving thru northern Indiana, near Shipsy, an area of Amish and small farms. I saw a dead cow laying in the lot near the house. No idea how long it had laid there. I guess cows die at large feed lots and small farms.
It is an awful sight, but three out of thousands isn't beyond what a small farm might average.

It is a myth that large feedlots keep them full of antibiotics. You couldn't afford to run a feedlot with highly medicated cattle. There are plenty of medications sold to small scale cattle farms.

[sammyd]

I could show you some small farms that would curl your hair.

[Up North]

The removal of dead stock is becoming more difficult with the advent of new regulations and laws which have created an astronomical increase in the fees rendering companies charge to remove the dead.
I would venture that many livestock operations will adopt composting protocols to dispose of these animals.
The issue varies depending on the position you are looking at it from.
The owner or manager of a large herd or feedlot might take the view that keeping the main herd of hundreds or thousands of cattle fed and healthy is Job 1, and removing the dead ones comes after that. From a pragmatic standpoint, once a cow is dead, they are not going to get any more dead, whether they are hauled off today or tomorrow.
The other viewpoint would be that the presence of dead stock is objectionable, nay unacceptable.
Neither viewpoint is probably "all right" or "all wrong".
The reality is that dead stock happen, and are part of the larger system of producing large volumes of beef at a reasonable cost to the end user.
Prompt disposal, is, of course, the more desirable course of action.

[copperhead46]

I know that the disposal of dead animals is a problem for the small farmer. There use to be a place here that would come get dead animals for free, they took them to be rendered for dog food. they wouldn't come onto your land, you had to drag the animal to the road, because of the possibility of spreading disease. Now if you have a dead one, you just better get to burning or burying it. I took one of my old horses to the vet to have him put down and I had to pay $80.00 to get someone come get the carcass and dispose of it.
P.J.

[sammyd]

We used to have lots of mink farms that would actually pay for down animals.
Now it costs to get them picked up. Less mink more rules....
I have noticed more info on composting them lately. And I can see where that would be the way to go.

[deaconjim]

I've done the drive-by myself, and it is an experience you won't soon forget.

[Ken Scharabok]

At one time locally you could call the county highway department and, for a modest fee, they would send out a backhoe and crew to bury large dead animals. Now you are on your own.

Apparently now most folks either let them lay or drag them out of sight for the coons, possums and buzzards.

We now have several county convenience/recycling centers. Previously there were just dumpsters along the side of the road at various locations. The dumpster divers complained about finding dead dogs, cats and calves in them.

[DJ in WA]

Okay, let me once again comment on the subject of feedlots.

It is amazing to me that the beef industry is still in business, considering how little it cares about it’s image. Saw a show the other day on which a Michael Pollan guy was discussing his experience driving by a stinky feedlot along I-5 in California. He had no idea that was how cattle were fattened. He’s an editor of Harper’s magazine and that motivated him to research our food supply and he wrote some books questioning the whole system. You’d think they could put the feedlot somewhere other than along a major freeway.

A good family friend runs a feedlot which my brother helped build and worked at. I’ve spent some time there. There is always a “dead pile”, preferably out of sight.

Feedlots have more disease for several reasons. First, animals are fearful for long periods of time. Shipping and sorting and co-mingling and establishing pecking orders in the pens are stressful. Weaning, shipping, new surroundings, trucks, squeeze chutes, new feed, water troughs, etc.

The fear response in the body causes high levels of cortisol to be released from the adrenal glands. Cortisol causes suppression of the immune system, resulting in increased susceptibility to illness. Immunity is also suppressed due to lack of feed and water while shipping and getting adjusted to feedlot routine.

While being immunosuppressed, the cattle are also being exposed to disease bugs from co-mingled cattle at auctions and in the feedlots. Pneumonia is a common result.

I read a veterinarian comment that instead of asking why some die in feedlots from stress and disease exposure, we should ask how any could survive.

Another reason for health issues is the high carbohydrate diet. My Merck Veterinary Manual says up to 40% of cattle at slaughter have liver abscesses. How do they get them? Well cattle aren’t designed to eat much carbohydrate like the grain, etc they get in feedlots. The rumen microbes convert it to lactic acid, which can burn holes in the rumen, allowing bacteria to get to the liver through the bloodstream.

Cattle are fed all sorts of food waste – our friend has piles of potato waste, and I’ve read of feeding candy waste. Doesn’t take much to overdose cattle on such refined carbohydrates, but the whole system is designed to produce beef at least cost, so it is considered worth the risk.

[Ken Scharabok]

Until a couple of years ago feedlotted cattle could be fed composted broiler house litter. A good source of inexpensive protein. However, chickens can still be feed cattle byproducts, such as meat and bone meal. To break any possible link between cattle byproducts and MCD, it can no longer be used. Thus raising the cost of raising beef for a problem which seems to be virtually non-existent.

When I was visiting Croatia in 2001 I was taken to meet the equivalent of the town mayor. I commented I was a cattle farmer but had yet to see a single cow there. Two visits were arranged, one to a village woman who milked three cows and to a nearby 6,000 head capacity cattle feedlot. As I recall they had about 4,000 head, almost all intact young bulls, at the time. They were fed a mix of corn silage put up dry (after the stalks had turned brown and the ears hardened), spent beer malt and a tad of salt. They were confined indoors in lots of 20-30 on slotted floors. Absolutely no odor unless you were next to the pit in which the manure was liquified to be pumped to one of three lagoons. The lagoons had a crust on the top sealing off odors. From what I could tell they only bought in the malt and salt, raising their own corn, fertilized from the lagoons. The operation was overseen by a vet. Any cattle which had to be treated were sent to a 'sick barn' and didn't rejoin their group. That particular day, again out of about 4,000, there were two young bulls in the sick barn. Due to a translation problem I didn't find out what eventually would happen to them.

[francismilker]

While the smell of the feedlots is just simply a fact of life that I understand, they don't bother me. On the issue of the dead crittes laying there for three days, I was just simply wondering if they could pose a health risk to the other cattle there. When I have one die on the place I usually hook them up to the tractor and drag them off to a spot on the back forty that I've chosen to coyote hunt. I live far enough away from others that the smell or appearance isn't a problem.

[Razorback21]

Personally, I love the way feedlots operate, because that is what keeps my wife and I in the business of selling sides of beef. If they ever got their act together and acted responsibly, my wife and I would be out of the cattle business!!!!! What would I have to compare to!