Jonah wrote:...... Freezer Pig: Hope this doesn't cause you to walk away from the computer yet again!.....
Not a chance Jonah, in fact I agree 100% with your analysis, although I disagree with your discription of being kept in evil confined spaces and pumped full of antibiotics. I'll let that slide though, since you summed up the first part so well.
leek wrote:.....Do note that a lot of the posts on this thread are over 3 years old. We are learning, or trying to, or just trying......
I know, I think that's why I kept coming back. I think the one that fired me up the most, and I'm not going back to see who did it, was the post about cattle being forced to eat corn and then force fed antibiotics because the corn was bad for them.
I'm sure there are people who read this and believed it. The fact is, cattle will do quite well on a properly balanced ration that is mostly corn. There are also vitamins & minerals added, along with another protein source to provide the animals with the proper diet they need to grow and thrive. The feed is also ground to the proper size, to aid in digestion. The poster made it sound like they were forced to eat nothing but raw shelled corn.
As far as antibiotics go, understanding the beef industry would help. Here is a very basic overview, it doesn't fit every situation, but it's a blanket.
Most of the cattle heading to feedlots, came off the grasslands out west or the southwest. Cows and calves are grazed until the calves are weaned and shipped to the feedlots. The reason cattle are on that land is because there usually isn't enough moisture in those regions to grow cash crops like corn and beans, or the land is too rugged to farm. There is enough grass to keep cows/calves going, but it would take a long time (and a lot of land) for a growing calf, just grazing, to reach market weight.
Calves are weaned & loaded in a trailer, headed for the feedlots, usually closer to where the corn is grown. This is the most stressful time in the animals life, and any little germ they come accross is going to take hold. This is why antibiotics are fed. It isn't because the corn is bad for them. It's just easier to prevent an outbreak of something, than trying to get it under control after a bug has taken off.
I will bet, if you ask any of your grass fed producers, (who aren't organic) who ship calves in, they will tell you the calves get a shot of antibiotic when they come off the trailer, just because of the stress of moving them.
I won't say antibiotics aren't fed in livestock rations, but there are withdrawl times. This is an amount of time that the animal has to go, since the last intake of the drug until slaughter. The stronger the drug, the more withdrawl time. The USDA randomly checks for drug residue, and I don't think any producer would want to be found with carcasses that have it.
I'm not going to say every animal that goes to slaughter has no antibiotic residue in it's tissue, but I will say a vast majority of it is clean.
I'll bet the use of antibacterial soaps and doctors giving people antibiotics for viruses, have caused more problems than drugs in livestock feed, but there is no way to prove any of it, so it's just another opinion. And there aren't enough livestock producers left to have any volume to their voice, so they will take the blame.
I just typed more than since I was in college. This is supposed to be a thread about grass fed beef and I just took it clear off track. I apologize, but I won't delete it because I have too much time invested.
I hope this all makes sense, it does to me......
Tim