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It is oddly cruel to see that logic applied in organic meats. An animal might become infected. It might die a very painful and slow death. But to keep organic c
by virmundi 13y ago
It is oddly cruel to see that logic applied in organic meats. An animal might become infected. It might die a very painful and slow death. But to keep organic certification, not antibiotic maybe used on the farm.
Even for animal that will become food, I would think that kindness should be applied. If it is sick/infected, but still useful for meat, cure it and eat it. If not, just kill it. Don't let it suffer.
- awjr 13y agoOrganic farmers have approved antibiotics they can use (as well as natural remedies). If a dairy cow is treated with antibiotics the holding time before she is allowed back into the milking process is usually double or triple the normal holding time for a non-organic cow (10-15 days vs 5 days). Sh is still milked but the milk is poured away.
- cglace 13y agoIsn't there something more useful they could do with that milk than pour it away?
- toomuchtodo 13y agoPossibly composted. That's about it.
- mdparker89 13y agoBacteria is needed for composting to happen. Milk with antibiotics in it would hurt that process.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoIf you're in a professional ag setting (farm, etc), that small amount of milk (and even smaller amount of antibiotics in said milk) should pale in comparison to the amount of material in your compost setup. Should be fine, although I'm willing to test this theory out. Disclaimer: I'm not a farmer, but I do manage the IT/automation of my/a family farm.
- sneak 13y agoThis seems like exactly the kind of "slowly and steadily select for antibiotic resistance in bacteria" behavior that they're trying to avoid with these changes.
- raverbashing 13y agoMaybe But below a certain concentration some antibiotics won't have an effect hence, no evolutionary pressure If at the concentration presented it kills/affects some bacteria, yes, what you mention happens, otherwise it doesn't. Of course, I may be wrong
- sliverstorm 13y agoIt would have to be a non-food application, if we are trying to isolate the antibiotics. The only non-food application of milk that I am aware of is casein plastics.
- fractallyte 13y agoAnd casein paint. Non-toxic, solvent free; used in 'traditional' building, along with other wonderful materials like lime plaster and wattle and daub.
- mitchty 13y agoWhen I was young we'd always spray the kittens with it. (I grew up on a dairy farm, fortunately we got rid of the cows when I was about 7) They loved the whole situation.
- guelo 13y agoWhy fortunately?
- jessaustin 13y agoIf mitchty is like all the former dairy farmers I know, it's because dairy farming is a lot of hard work, and it never ends. There are no weekends, and no holidays. I like raising beef cattle because many days you don't even have to look at them. (Not today though! Ice to break on the pond, for starters...)
- Qworg 13y agoI can agree with this 100% - much of my family out in Iowa raises dairy. They never get a vacation. Ever. In regards to the announcement, without teeth, this won't cause any changes. External enforcement is absolutely necessary to make this stick.
- mitchty 13y agoYep, you're both 100% right. Dairy cattle are basically a prison sentence. We had regular cattle too, those amounted to looking at the pasture they're in and moving them around. Way less upkeep.
- chrisgd 13y agoDon't break it, skate on it.
- mitchty 13y agoGenerally a bad idea when the cows need the pond to drink.
- asciimo 13y agoUnfortunately, cow milk is only useful as a human beverage.
- huragok 13y agoI see a new market for milk baths!
- yetanotherphd 13y agoYeah, but then everyone will want organic milk baths, so they won't be able to use the milk for that either
- Crito 13y agoOr a cow beverage. Could this milk be useful for feeding to calves?
- asciimo 13y agoThanks, Crito. I glad someone else sees the absurdity of drinking another animal's milk.
- awjr 13y agoYes it can be sold as Class B product (not organic) (usually to cheese manufacturers). It just can't be sold as organic.
- po 13y agoI think 'wasting' it is good. Once you find something useful for it, it perverts the incentives. A sick cow should be considered a complete waste with no benefit.
- cglace 13y agoI think there is a lot of ground between pouring something down the drain and it being worth its weight in gold.
- digikata 13y agoI think that banning of antibiotic use in livestock generally focuses on the preemptive addition of antibiotics in feed. Antibiotic additives are associated with increased weight gain for the animals, as well as letting feed lots put more animals in denser quarters while keeping disease rates down. These direct economic drivers are why industry has fought the regulations for so long - despite the long-term detrimental societal health costs. It's pretty much a classic case of an economic externality needing regulation. Edit: here's a reference link http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/industrial-agriculture/prescription-for-trouble.html http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-...
- nate_meurer 13y agoI wholeheartedly agree :) However in the American meat industry, terminally ill animals are universally culled in short order.
- nate_meurer 13y agoShit, this may not apply to the dairy industry however. I found this on an organic dairy website http://www.oberweis.com/web/milk.asp http://www.oberweis.com/web/milk.asp: "Organic certification requires that milk be discarded for 12 months after antibiotic use. This has the unfortunate side effect of making a sick cow such a financial burden to a farm that it must frequently be killed. When this happens, organic farmers generally milk the sick cow (and sell her milk to be bottled as organic) as she gets sicker and sicker and as the quality of her milk deteriorates. She is slaughtered once her milk approaches legal limits." So that sucks.
- bmj 13y agoDoes anyone have any statistics on how many dairy cows are killed per year because of this? I suspect we are looking at a lesser-of-two-evils scenario: would you rather have a small number of cows culled each year because of sickness, or a large number of cows living in feedlots and pre-emptively given antibiotics because of squalid living conditions?
- aforty 13y agoThis. Would be nice to have some stats but I suspect you're right.
- mratzloff 13y agoThey use antibiotics in part because they keep animals in such close proximity. Disease spreads quickly in those conditions. In other words, they're creating the conditions that you would say justify the use of antibiotics. You can't leave a loophole, or else companies will simply take advantage of it, even if it's to the detriment of society as a whole.
- 6d0debc071 13y agoIt's dead in the end either way. If you assume we're going to eat it. Is it worth an extra animal's worth of meat for an extra animal's worth of anti-bacterial resistance, that's the core question here. If we're not using these antibiotics so widely to prevent the infection in the first place how does that scale? It may be better, in the long run, just to say 'no antibiotics in animals' and kill those that become ill out of hand. Otherwise I can see this becoming an easy out for farmers - they could still keep the animals in atrocious conditions, knowing that they can use AB to cure them after they become ill - and if a large number of them become ill then we'll be in exactly the same pickle we are now.
- elisha 13y agoAnother excellent reason to not eat meat.
- anigbrowl 13y agoI'm not against antibiotics being used to treat individual sick animals. That's a whole different proposition from employing them as a food supplement and just dosing the entire herd as a prophylactic.