Posted by Ricky on February 21, 2001 at 15:05:41:
In Reply to: DEAD CATS BEING FED TO COWS!!!!!!!!!! posted by Johnathan on February 21, 2001 at 15:03:20:
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT Sept. 1, 1997 The next bad beef scandal? Cattle feed now contains things like manure and dead cats- aAuTo trim costs, many farmers add a variety of waste substances to their livestock and poultry feed –and no one is making sure they are doing so safely. Chicken manure in particular, which costs from $15 to $45 a ton in comparison with up to $125 a ton for alfalfa, is increasingly used as feed by cattle farmers despite possible health risks to consumers.
In regions with large poultry operations, such as California, the South, and the mid-Atlantic, more and more farmers are turning to chicken manure as a cheaper alternative to grains and hay...Health officials are not as enthusiastic. Chicken manure often contains campylobacter and salmonella bacteria, which can cause disease in humans, as well as intestinal parasites, veterinary drug residues, and toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.
These bacteria and toxins are passed on to the cattle and can be cycled to humans who eat beef contaminated by feces during slaughter. A scientific paper scheduled for publication this fall in the journal Preventive Medicine points to the potential dangers of recycling chicken waste to cattle. "Feeding manure that has not been properly processed is supercharging the cattle feces with pathogens likely to cause disease in consumers," says Dr. Neal Barnard, head of the Washington, D.C.--based health lobby Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an author of the article...
In addition, some 40 billion pounds a year of slaughterhouse wastes like blood, bone, and viscera, as well as the remains of millions of euthanized cats and dogs passed along by veterinarians and animal shelters, are rendered annually into livestock feed –in the process turning cattle and hogs, which are natural herbivores, into unwitting carnivores...Animal-feed manufacturers and farmers also have begun using or trying out dehydrated food garbage, fats emptied from restaurant fryers and grease traps, cement-kiln dust, even newsprint and cardboard that are derived from plant cellulose. Researchers in addition have experimented with cattle and hog manure, and human sewage sludge
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: US NEWS & WORLD REPORT Sept. 1, 1997
: The next bad beef scandal? Cattle feed now contains things like manure and dead cats- aAuTo trim costs, many farmers add a variety of waste substances to their livestock and poultry feed –and no one is making sure they are doing so safely. Chicken manure in particular, which costs from $15 to $45 a ton in comparison with up to $125 a ton for alfalfa, is increasingly used as feed by cattle farmers despite possible health risks to consumers.