I would not sell to the public any animal that I would not eat myself. To me eating a sick a animal, is like eating road kill .I would eat an animal if I saw how it got injured i.e it stepped in a hole and broke its leg. Industry resisted warnings over beef During a House debate last summer over a possible ban on using sick and injured cows for meat, Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., held up a photo of a crippled cow and cautioned that such "downer animals" carried the highest risk for mad cow disease. But Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, a powerful rancher, countered that the government's screening program was tight enough to prevent any problems. "The picture the gentleman is showing, that sick animal, will never find its way into the food chain," Stenholm said. "Period." ----------------------------------- Though some scientists had long warned that mad cow disease would eventually appear in the United States, cattle owners and meat packers repeatedly resisted calls for a more substantial program to test for the disease, and the Agriculture Department went along with them. Congress came close three times to banning the sale of meat from downer cows, ones that are too sick or hurt to amble into slaughterhouses, only to see the industry's allies block each bill at the last moment. ------------------------------------------ The nation's meat inspection system has undergone sweeping changes, with the government shifting much of the responsibility for safety to meat companies. Beef production has become increasingly concentrated and industrialized. Many packing plants now use advanced systems to extract more meat close to the animals' bones and spinal cords, increasing the chances that possibly risky tissue from their central nervous systems could end up in hamburgers and other processed meat. Some scientists wonder if government officials, even now, appreciate the full extent of the dangers. For more⦠http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/7584713.htm
We have in the past and probably will in the future et a bull which got into a fight in the bull pen and ended up with a broke leg.... just put him into another pen by hisself and fed him for a couple weeks till he looked like he was gainin a little weight and you have ok beef, maybe not prime or choice, but if let hang for 14 - 21 days it will be tender. that said, my cousin has a small federally inspected packing house/processing plant that is capable of hanging about 150 beeves, the one inspector is there on hnad every kill day, and his wages are paid for that day by my cousin [payed into a fund like taxes] if there is an animal with a non noramla temperature it is not slaughtered..... and if there is anything abnormal with the lungs or glands, it is stamped not for sale [my cousin has his own beef and sells to several grocery stores in the surrounding towns his own brand of sausage, smokies and such] so the if the meat inspectors are really doing their job and not on the take, the laws and such are already in place to prevent a diseased animal from making it into the "food supply chain" for common folks to consume.... people are responsible for their own moral values, and owners of the processing plants and such should be of high moral standards.... but not everyone is cut from the same bolt of cloth.
Not only no, but emphatically HELL NO! Unless I know for a fact how an animal is injured I'd not eat it. I've worked for commercial livestock raisers, dairies and put in several years in a small federally inspected meat operation. I've never worked for any meat producer that would send a downer to the kill floor unless they actually witnessed the injury. Occasionally, especially in the dairy we would lose a cow to crippling because of slipping on wet concrete. Even then, the owners, friends, neighbors and employees got first dibs. For one thing most downed livestock gets some form of vet care and any antibiotics make it inedible. Putting downers in the food chain is unethical and you wouldn't think the U.S. government would even HAVE to legislate morality. Such is corporate farming anymore. Hey Blu3duk, is that Wood's yer speakin' of? If so I have a funny story about Steve and a federal inspector. Unless things have changed since I worked in a federally inspected plant, the plant doesn't pay for the inspector, the taxpayers do. They do make some really stupid concessions for the privilege though! Read: Private office with their own personal toilet, professionally laundered gowns and what not. Ours required his own coffee pot and a particular brand of coffee. I hope it has changed but federal inspection here was a joke. Each inspector is a well paid retired veterinarian. Some of the practices that were acceptable to them are pathetic. Ours would show up and he'd go read magazines in his office. They do wield the power of God though and can shut you down for the least transgression. I got a million stories if anyone wants to hear them.
Though some scientists had long warned that mad cow disease would eventually appear in the United States, cattle owners and meat packers repeatedly resisted calls for a more substantial program to test for the disease, and the Agriculture Department went along with them .................................................................... Why is that? To keep costs down?
"To me eating a sick a animal, is like eating road kill " What's wrong with road kill? I have eaten deer, muskrats, coon, one elk and various birds over the past fifty years with no ill effects. At least you know what killed them!
Likewise. If you had an oportunity to witness the animal getting killed and it was acting normally I wouldn't worry about it. Chronic wasting disease is the same thing as Mad Cow disease only in wildlife. If I hit a critter that was not acting normally I certainly wouldn't eat it.
I have a technical downer in my freezer right now. Steer broke his leg coming out of a chute. Nothing at all wrong with that meat. I've never sold a sick cow. Can't sell a downer at the sale barn, not that I would want too. Most large packers will not process downers, but some smaller places will. I've had a couple downers...they died on the farm when I couldn't save them and they were buried on the farm. Treating an animal with antibiotics does not make them inedible. There is a withdrawl time (different time for different drugs). Once they are past the withdrawl, they can be sold for meat. Please do not lump cattle producers with packers. Rarely are cattle producers on the same page as packers. I don't know of a single cattle producer who would mind more testing or would fight against it. Packers would probably fight against it. Jena
I assure you the answer is yes. Do it all the time. Everytime I put store-bought beef/pork/chicken/etc in my mouth I am eating an unknown quantity from an unknowable source. Every last one of you does the same. Also, how good a shape was that buck in before you shot him? Do you KNOW the guy that gave you those rabbits is on the level? Was that squirrel acting a little *odd* before you ventilated the back of his head...? Ever actually paid attention to some of what your free-range chickens eat?! What baffles me the most is not that mad-cow was found here. Any thinking person could figure out it would happen sooner or later. It's that instead of quietly verifying it, finding the beef, disposing of the lot, making sure such a future route is permanently sealed and forgetting about it we, or "they", the idiots of goobermint, opened their mouthes about it. Jeez.
