Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Animal abuse becomes more costly

It’s going to cost farmers more if they continue to abuse their livestock and poultry.

Chipotle restaurant chain, for example, has suspended pork purchases from a supplier after it flunked an animal welfare audit.

It has not named the company.

And Temple Grandin, the animal welfare advocate, told the International Livestock Forum at Colorado State University, that farmers need to pull up their socks on animal welfare and be prepared to be transparent with the public.

She said the debate over gestation crates for sows is over; they need to be scrapped.

“Let’s make sure we’re doing the basics,” she said. “Animal handling is the easiest thing to fix.”

If animals are showing up lame at the packing plant, for example, the company and the producer need to look at the potential causes.

It may be due to over-use of growth promotants, or an animal that has been pushed past its limit for egg or dairy production — a situation that happens all too often, Grandin said, and for which consumers are most likely to blame the meat processor.

Merck withdrew Zilmac growth promotant from the beef market while it checked further to determine whether it’s partially to blame for cattle becoming lame.

Merck says its product has been cleared, but it has also issued new guidelines spelling out maximum doses and length of use.

The egg-laying industry is also under scrutiny, especially over the transportation of spent hens whose bone structure has been weakened because calcium is drawn for egg shells.


“One of the things we need to make sure we’re not doing, and that’s out and out abuse,” she said.