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.
