Hi friends! One concern that we as livestock producers hear a lot about is the use of antibiotics in the treatment of our animals. I'm sure you've even seen labels on your meat products at the store that advertise them as "Antibiotic free." Well, the truth is, ALL the meat that you buy is antibiotic free! You see, antibiotics have to be administered to livestock under what is called the "Veterinary Feed Directive," which means it is illegal to use medically-important antibiotics for any extralabel use. Antibiotics can only be administered under veterinary care! Under these guidelines, an animal has to wait a specified period of time (as directed by the label of the antibiotic) for withdrawal before the animal can go to slaughter to be processed for food. This means that the antibiotics have to work their way out of the animal's system before it is fit to eat. And then you have advertisements like this one here from Perdue, which tells you that their animals are never given any antibiotics. If no meat has antibiotics in it, what concern is it that they are never given antibiotics? Well, some people are concerned about the effect continual use of antibiotics will have on bacteria, that they may become resistant to the antibiotics and become "superbugs." While this is certainly something to be concerned about, it is important to note that the USDA and other organizations are tightening regulations regarding antibiotic use every day with orders like the Veterinary Feed Directive. It is also important to note that the types of diseases that livestock contract are rarely the same types of diseases that humans contract, so we don't have large cause of concern for getting a "superbug" from our livestock. There is always room for improvement in the way we raise our food animals, and we are working on fields like antibiotic use constantly. Producers will continue to try to bring the highest quality product to your table while also looking out for the best interest of the health of their animals.
So, what's COOL these days? Your meat isn't. Are you confused yet? COOL stands for Country of Origin Labeling. This was a law that the USDA had established that required the labeling of meat sold in the US to state the origin of the animal. However, the World Trade Organization ordered the USDA to reverse this rule, stating that it violated US trade agreements with Canada and Mexico. They claimed that it put an undue burden on producers and shippers to keep perfect record of the path each animal took from birth to slaughter. With the rule in place, a label on your meat could potentially read "Born in Canada, Raised in Mexico, Slaughtered in USA." So why would we want our meat to be labeled with country of origin? Well, first, the American consumer likes to know that the product they are paying for is raised to a certain standard of quality. Second, it is good for the American meat producer because the consumer is more likely to purchase a product with a label stating...
The media these days love to focus on CAFOs. But what are they, really? CAFO stands for concentrated animal feeding operation. Most people, if they have heard this term, have an instantly negative connotation of it. I, myself, was even fooled into the fear of them by a well-meaning but misinformed biology professor back in the day. CAFOs are a little different for every species. For instance, beef animals start in a cow/calf operation, where they are on pasture, move to a stocker/backgrounder operation, where they are still on pasture, until they are about a year old, and then for about the last 3 months in a concentrated feedlot. Swine, on the other hand, spend most of their lives in a "hog house," an indoor feeding and care facility. Why are hogs raised indoors? Simply because it is easier to monitor each individual animal's health that way. Pigs have a tendency to get sick and to hurt themselves and each other. Having enclosed pens with only a few animals per pen makes...
In my last post, I wrote to you about CAFOs and swine. One particular hot button topic in the realm of swine operations is the use of gestation crates. These are not to be confused with farrowing crates, which are crates that are used when the sow is giving birth. Farrowing crates keep the piglets safe because mothers have the tendency to roll over on them and kill them without noticing. Farrowing crates allow the piglets to still suckle on the mother without running the risk of getting rolled over. Gestation crates are metal enclosures that hold a pregnant sow through the duration of her pregnancy. She can move forward and backward but she cannot turn around. Those against the use of gestation crates argue that it is inhumane to keep an animal in such a small enclosure and unable to interact socially with other animals. Proponents of gestation crates will tell you that it is easier to monitor the health of the animal, give her the exact amount of food she needs to have a healthy pre...
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