[wr]

Darren, you're preaching to the choir. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear at all. On several occasions, I have suggested that this is less a matter of feed contamination than cross contamination. As a matter of fact, I had a discussion with my vet when we found the angus cow and he was the guy that mentioned to me that there was a possability of such an occurance and he drug out books and reference material to support his theory. In a recent thread I mentioned my theory and I was told that Colorado has an ongoing experiment that is proving my theory incorrect on a daily basis because they've been pastureing cattle and affected deer together for ages with no indication of cross contaminaton. The only thing I do know in all this madness is that if there's one, there's more and I'd sleep a lot better if they could find some pattern in all this. Right now, people are running scared again. They're talking again, about killing off all cattle that predate the new feed regulations. Won't that be great, rush headlong into a mass execution and find out that the feed regulations had nothing to do with it at all. I'm in Alberta and the only common thread that I find between the two cows is that they both come from an area that was heavily populated with deer and elk farms. The land from those farms are now under quasi quarrantines, never again can they have deer or elk on them, after the herds were decimated, but it's legal to raise cattle on that very same land. It's also illegal to release domesticated deer or elk into the wild, but I've seen pleny of both integrated into wild herds, they aren't hard to spot with their pretty little ear tag. The marekt for deer and elk is so poor here that they can't even be given away, the food banks won't take them because they aren't inspected and it's hard to convince someone to keep feeding something that's doing nothing but costing them money. Hopefully, both our governments are working together in a forward direction because our ag economy can't take much more pressure. Our latest auction report says that you can buy 600 wt steers, and darned good ones at that, for less than $200.

 

[Wanda]

WRAND ROSS
Thank you both for the information to help us sot out this mess.I went to the local livesock auction to check prices.They solr around 7or800 head; prices up to 81.50 on fats Feeders sold from the low 70's to high 90's.The surprising thing to me was cow prices ; old(8to11)bred cows were450to700 dollars a head and young cows going back to the farm were over 800 Slaughter Holstines were in great demand the high yield very thin cows were bringing55 to57.50 This was there first sale since the USDA reported the mad cow case in Washington State!The state vet had no information,there are no regulation changes,and it was mentioned if you had weak cattle that were potential downers, you should sell them before the regulations change Itwas very interesting to talk to other producers and hear that there big concern was lack of information from the USDA :no: :no:

mr. wanda
Mike

 

[wr]

Wanda, this is a tough time for everybody. The two governments and conducting and investigation and until there is some accurate information, they will say very little. It leaves folks worrying and wondering and the media is happy to fill in the gaps. During our investigation, the farms lost animals to testing and farms that were under investigation were to remain unnamed and each step along the way, the media ferreted out the names of ranch owners/operators, destroying the reputations of many good people. The poor man that last owned the angus cow is still in hiding and rumor the rumor mill has been pretty unkind to him. Your prices won't be as negatively affected as ours are because you have a greater population, we are dependant on an export market that's dried up. It's a rotten thing to happen to an industry and it's going to cause problems along the way.