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> ... is fed to cattle and chickens, whose meat is also sold at a premium [...] because a growing number of consumers are willing to pay more for protein that c
by Jedd 7y ago
> ... is fed to cattle and chickens, whose meat is also sold at a premium [...] because a growing number of consumers are willing to pay more for protein that comes from animals raised on a natural, organic diet.
Consumers have been misled - cattle's natural diet is grass, not grains.
Chickens will opportunistically eat grains and seeds, but if given the opportunity will eagerly eat a blend of greens and insects & worms.
In either case, forcing an exclusively grain-based diet on either of these animals is anything but natural and consequently, unsurprisingly, extremely bad for their health.
It's only that they're typically slaughtered before the effects of these decisions properly manifest that growers get away with this.
- bumby 7y agoJust to add a little clarity, beef cattle all start eating grass and generally continue for a large portion of their life. It’s just whether or not they are “finished” on grass or grain. I’m not aware of farms using an “exclusively grain-based diet”
- cmmeur01 7y agoI thought all feed lots were exclusively grain only? When driving past one in Colorado I didn't see any grass anywhere the animals could access, just a ton of muddy ground.
- bumby 7y agoMy understanding is that these feedlots are where cattle are housed for the last few months to gain weight before slaughter.
- BenjiWiebe 7y agoSpeaking of dairy farms with muddy lots and no grass in sight, they feed TMR (total mixed ration). It's a mixture of ground hay (dried grass!), corn silage (chopped fermented grass!), grain, and trace minerals and vitamins, adjusted on a regular basis by a nutritionist.
- dbcurtis 7y agoNo, there has to be roughage mixed in. (Hay, etc) Cattle will founder in pure grain.
- Jedd 7y agoTo clarify your clarity. Beef cattle historically have started on milk, and then moved to pasture. In industrialised countries, beef cattle are fed on grains for most or all of their lives. Perhaps for marketing reasons, I'm not sure, in some places, for some percentage of the herd, they're finished on pasture. Most CAFOs, as others have noted, are primarily started and completed with grain.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bumby 7y agoJust to underscore the reason I felt the need to clarify, I don’t think it’s accurate to claim there are any cattle fed grain for “all” of their life. Like the previous statement about “exclusively grain fed diets”, it’s either needlessly hyperbolic or misleading.
- Jedd 7y agoOkay, I see your point. To weasel out slightly, I did say: " ... beef cattle are fed on grains for most or all of their lives." AIUI, CAFO-destined cattle are moved into feeding lots as soon as they're weaned -- say at a couple of months old. They're mostly on milk, with some grass, up to that point. But from that point on they're on grain-only. You said: > I’m not aware of farms using an “exclusively grain-based diet” and subsequently > My understanding is that these feedlots are where cattle are housed for the last few months to gain weight before slaughter. This doesn't align with my understanding. Once within a CAFO, the cattle stay there until slaughter -- say at age 18 months or less. During that time they're fed exclusively grain, as this ensures maximum growth / minimum time / best ratio of input cost to sale price / etc. Some may be finished on pasture, as this is an increasingly profitable market, plus it drastically reduces pathogens within the animal, and improves the flavour (so I'm told).
- bumby 7y agoI think I understand where you’re coming from and I’m willing to bet you understand the nuance but my concern was mainly for the uninitiated reading and drawing too drastic of a conclusion. I think the USDA info I read was that the “typical” cattle are pasture raised for around 4 months before going to a feedlot. Once there, the feed may be as high as 90-95% grain. At that point it almost feels pedantic to claim they are anything but grain fed, but a purely grain diet can cause them to founder like horses on grass as another commenter said.
- MiroF 7y agoi'm curious what natural means in the context of animal species that are relative newcomers and have always been domesticated
- AmericanChopper 7y agoOrganic, chemical free, natural, non-gm... are all marketing jargon that has no connection at all to what those words mean in the English language. Pretty much anything with carbon in it is organic, nothing is chemical free, natural is entirely a matter of opinion (is any agriculture “natural”?), and selective breeding is selective genetic modification (and very unnatural to boot). People claim that the new definitions for these words align with a supposedly simply guiding philosophy, but that’s not true either, the ones that are regulated simply align with lengthy, arbitrarily defined, and often inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another, regulations.
- Jedd 7y agoWhat animal species do you believe are relative newcomers? I'm assuming here that you mean species that have come into being since humans stopped being hunter gatherers -- let's say 10k ya. For me, natural means what they evolved to consume. So for cattle, and their genetic ancestors, it'd be grass, with perhaps some shrubby plants and trees. It certainly wasn't grains, for obvious reasons.
- paganel 7y agoNot sure about beef but I can guarantee you that there's a ton of difference between the eggs produced by my parents' chicken (they raise them "organically", so to speak, i.e. they do subsistence agriculture) and the eggs that I can purchase from the supermarket closest to me. And the difference is in favour of my parents' chicken. The same discussion is valid for the chicken meat.
- zaroth 7y agoTwo of my neighbors raise chickens. They both regularly drop off eggs as their supply exceeds demand. They are visually distinctive (they tend to be smaller than a supermarket “large egg” and dirtier for sure) but after cooking are entirely indistinguishable from the eggs at the store. Of course I’m very grateful for the eggs, but even they will admit it’s not for quality and quantity, but mostly a fun hobby and something to help get the kids involved with.
- Retric 7y agoIt’s common for people to feed chickens the same basic diet as industrial chicken farmers do. Otherwise you need quite a bit more land per chicken. A good rule of thumb is unless their walking on grass they need feed.
- mod 7y agoI raised chickens and they had the run of my 40 acres. I could not tell the difference in the eggs except for the shell color and yolk color. Free-range chickens tend to have a darker, orange yolk. The taste is identical, to me at least. The meat is totally different, though.
- paganel 7y ago> but after cooking are entirely indistinguishable from the eggs at the store. I can personally feel the difference both when cooking schnitzels (I use the same meat, but the "crust" tastes different depending on the eggs used) and when making pancakes (I use the same milk and flour).
- whyenot 7y agoWhen I was at UC Davis I took an Animal Science class called “Ruminant Digestion and Nutrition.” We learned you can feed cows grains, hay, even sawdust. They can live and thrive on all those things as long as they also get trace minerals. That is the magic of having a rumen.
- Jedd 7y agoAbsolutely -- though it's the benefit of all four stomachs that comes into play there. Anything with some lignen in it, along with a salt block (or urea block) gets them pretty much everything they need, because they can manufacture their own amino acids. This doesn't detract from the fact that feeding them as much grains as they can eat -- not too dissimilar from the pate gooses -- is highly questionable.
- ironic_ali 7y agoOur chickens are nice occasionally too.
- ironic_ali 7y ago*mice
- Rexxar 7y agoYou can edit/fix your comments for two hours
- ironic_ali 7y ago*ate And never commenting again