It seems that when the law was changed in the U.S. to ban the use of rendered animal parts in animal feed, cattle producers looked around for other low cost feeds and that’s when they discovered chicken manure. (see CNN story at the end of this post.). Thanks to Gaille for sending this NFU commentary our way:
Lip-smacking good? NOT!
Are we eating American beef raised on chicken manure?
A commentary on behalf of the National Farmers Union Ontario
By Grant Robertson
When you think of cattle feed very few of us probably imagine chicken manure. Certainly it would be the last thing that would enter the mind of most of us from farmers to eaters. Some time ago the NFU was approached about the possible practice of feeding chicken litter to cattle in the United States, and potentially in other nations that export their beef to Canada. I say possible because it is really difficult for a farm organization in Canada to nail down what exactly is happening with this issue. Having spent a great deal of personal time trying to research this issue it has proven impossible to find the ‘smoking gun’ of how wide spread this practice is. Frankly it is going to take an enterprising news agency or journalist to follow this issue further. At this point it is hard to know where the truth really lies.
Here’s what we do know. Canada has banned this practice. The United States has not banned the practice of feeding chicken manure to cattle – quite the opposite in fact. You can find the following recommendation from the University of West Virginia (as an example) on the web by simply Googling ‘feeding chicken litter’:
“Alternative Roughages
The following rations are based on free choice feeding and is adequate for both dry and lactating cows. Because chicken litter is high in minerals, no salt or minerals need to be fed with this ration.
70% chicken litter
30% hay”
There are of course many concerns associated with eating beef fed on chicken ‘crap’. The more we learn about disease transfer – such as influenza viruses, the more we realize how at risk we are in our modern world. Chicken feed has as one of its ingredients cattle in the form of crude protein from meat and bone meal. In Canada we have banned the use of specified risk materials from all animal feed. However, in the United States this is not the case. While the FDA was on track to enact a ban on April 27th this has been delayed until at least June 26th and the American beef industry is asking for further delays.
Smells like...... no it couldn't be.....
So let’s step back and think about this for a second. It is a practice in the United States to feed chicken litter (manure) to cattle. SRMs – which have been connected to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) could conceivably be finding itself into the scattered feed in chicken litter. American cattle are potentially eating feed that could potentially be a link to BSE. That beef is potentially coming into Canada – and we Canadians do not want to seem to say – “uh isn’t something a bit odd here?” It seems more than likely that many of the other countries that are exporting beef to Canada, either in processed food or in straight forward cuts of beef may also be engaged in this practice.
As an eater I am shocked that a practice that could conceivably link our food directly to a variety of diseases being given a pass at our borders. It is equally shocking to consider the other nasty surprises that might be found in food that uses manure as a feed source. An organization like the NFU, or any farm organization really, simply does not have the resources to follow up on an issue like this. It is alarming to think we may all be inadvertently being exposed to this risk by the ignorance- wilful or otherwise- of our government. The NFU is hopeful that others with the resources necessary to follow the data will take up the challenge of either reassuring us this feeding chicken litter to cattle in America is not as widespread as it seems, or to expose this practice for the dangerous and foolish risk it is.
Grant Robertson is the senior elected official with the National Farmers Union-Ontario. As Ontario Coordinator Robertson is also a National Board Member of the NFU. Grant and his family farm near Paisley, Ontario. The author can be contacted at grant@bmts.com
Website for the National Farmers Union in Ontario
And here’s a related story from CNN from 1997: “Are Humans endangered if cattle dine on chicken manure“. Here are some excerpts:
“….Increasingly, American cattle farmers feed their herds chicken manure, which health officials warn could contain dangerous bacteria that ends up in ground meat eaten by humans, the magazine reports in its September 1 issue. The waste that is mixed with livestock feed is a less expensive alternative to using grains and hay.
The practice is increasingly being used by cattle farmers in regions where there are large poultry operations — and thus a ready supply of cheap manure — such as California, the South and the mid-Atlantic states.
The U.S. News article cites as an example Dardanelle, Arkansas, farmer Lamar Carter, who recently bought 745 tons of manure from local chicken houses to feed his 800 head of cattle.
“My cows are as fat as butterballs,” Carter said. “If I didn’t have chicken litter, I’d have to sell half my herd. Other feed’s too expensive.”…”
“…Chicken manure often contains campylobacteria and salmonella bacteria, which can make humans sick. Intestinal parasites, veterinary drug residues and heavy toxic metals such as arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury are also often present in the waste, the article says.
The article points to a scientific study, soon to be published in the journal Preventive Medicine, that warns about the potential dangers of recycling chicken waste by feeding it to cattle.
“Feeding manure that has not been properly processed is supercharging the cattle feces with pathogens likely to cause disease in consumers,” Dr. Neal Barnard, author of the study, warns in the U.S. News article.
While it may sound distasteful, this can be safe if the manure is heated to 160 degrees to kill the bacteria. But, the study says many farmers don’t take that precaution.
There are no accurate statistics on how common the practice of feeding chicken manure to cattle is, the magazine report says, but with a recent ban on the use of slaughterhouse byproducts — imposed because of the “mad cow” disease scare — there is a shortage of cattle feed filler.
Until the ban, about 75 percent of the 90 million cattle in the United States were fed slaughterhouse wastes that included blood, bones and viscera.
Millions of euthanized cats and dogs, collected from veterinarians and animal shelters, have long been rendered into livestock feed each year, the article says.”
Picture below from Down With Tyranny blog:
Is it only the cow that's "mad"?
Read this story in what looks like it might be the original version.
5 Comments
June 1, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Please sign my petitions on this topic at Care2!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/14/tell-congress-stop-practise-of-feeding-poultry-feces-to-food-producing-animals
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Tell-Mr-Harper-Carley-deserves-an-ANSWER
cowboss
June 2, 2009 at 7:13 am
Ivan, I’m glad to know that somebody is on this case!
June 3, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I am amazed that we allow this,I will not buy beef any more.
June 4, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Margery, you’re probably safer buying organic beef or at least beef from a farmer you know who you can ask about his feeding practices. Grass-fed is ideal. Of course hay is a form of grass. But grain-fed is not so ideal. The digestion system of cattle was never intended to deal with grain.
November 7, 2009 at 3:26 pm
This is a dangerous hew and cry. It is important not to over generalize regulations. For example:
1) Chickens love to root through manure in the pasture searching for bits of corn, insects, worms, etc to eat. This is a normal, natural, balanced part of the ecosystem.
2) Pigs love to search through a manure pile or compost pile looking for all those great bits of decaying material that are great to eat. This is a normal, natural, balanced part of the ecosystem.
Back when the USDA was defining Naturally Raised they initially banned the feeding of dairy (mammalian derived products) to pigs. That was wrong. Fortunately people wrote in during the comment period explaining that dairy is good food for pigs and the USDA specifically allowed for feeding of dairy. That was close. We almost lost the ability to feed dairy to pigs. Pigs have been a tradition way of using ‘waste’ dairy for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. They turn what is otherwise a waste product that would have to be disposed of into high quality protein and lipids. Chickens similarly do well on milk.
What one life form eats and passes may be excellent food for another. This is how we get oxygen to breath from plants exhalations and how they get carbon dioxide to breath from animal exhalations. Likewise the broccoli loves the shit of the pig and the seeds the animals don’t digest take root in the poop piles. Some animals, such as earthworms, chickens, pigs and insects eat the manure of other animals deriving nutrients from these predigested sources. It is all part of the greater web of life.
Yes, cows don’t normally or naturally eat chicken litter so this is certainly worth question. But it is all too easy for regulations to be badly written in over reaction to hysteria. Regulations and laws are usually written by people sitting in offices who don’t really know about farming out in the field. An unfortunate reality. This is why it is important to think these things through carefully, minimize any regulating and weigh in during comment periods.
The world is not a one size fits all sort of thing.
Cheers,
Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm LLC
Orange, Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com