Getting to know the HSUS

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To GB:

I understand what your saying, it sounds wonderful, but do the numbers work out. How many head of cattle, hogs, chickens, sheep, etc. does it take to feed us for a year, now convert that into pounds and then make adjustments based on feed and housing changes. Will it take longer to feed the animals up to a desired weight hence needing more animals to fill the demand, or shorter term, will conception rates go up or down, will litter size go up or down. Also, confinement housing allows us to breed stock out of normal season, if it is kept outside your going to limit your breeding periods making births seasonal rather then spread out year round. Now, how much agriculture land is available, what would the minimum stocking rate be per acre on average? Granted some parts of the country can handle more some less but just a base ball park. Will there be any land left to turn tractors around on or will all landspace need to be dedicated to feeding the animals? And what about winters in the parts of the country where stock can not access forage year round?

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to make a case for agriculture as it is, just trying to get a grip on the true impact of a different system based on free range practices.

 

And that is good!

 

It's also one of the reasons I suspect we will all need to eat less meat and pay more for it... I think it would be a net gain on a planetary scale.

[Sue R]

One thing that I think needs to be considered with regards to pasture-based livestock production is that most of that production occurs on land that is not suitable for producing crops - grain, truck, or other - that would be useful directly as "people food". In addition, the animals pastured return much of the value of the forages they consume back onto the pasture as fertilizer in their manure and urine. If wintered on the fields where their hay is produced, again they return a large part of the value of the forage back to the fields as fertilizer.

 

You may look at pounds of intake versus pounds of edible meat produced, but that's not the whole picture.

 

Confinement livestock production (beef, pork, chicken, eggs) is another story entirely.

[Alchemist]

I have a question, you mentioned about the pollution and such made by factory farms, if factory farms were banned and replaced by small free range operations, and the amount of meat that we demanded stayed the same, would the pollution risks from the small operations be less or more then what is currently being risked? This also makes me wonder as to how much of our population would have to swing over into the agriculture profession to replace the factory farms. Is it even possible/feasible? Or is the marketing campaign to eat/buy local more geared to saving the small producers we have or that are interested in getting into agriculture?

 

There's a saying with a lot of truth in it: "the solution to pollution is dilution". From what I've read, the problem with confined animal feeding operations is that the pollution (from animal manure lagoons, from the antibiotics fed as growth promoters or as medications to control diseases that are a direct result of the high densities at which the animals are grown, from the high concentrations of steroid hormones secreted by pregnant or lactating females) outweigh the ability of the receiving environment (soil, water) to assimilate them. (And even if the lagoons are pumped out and are used as fertilizer - sometimes the lagoon dikes break. Some infiltrates into groundwater. Some ammonia volatilizes and contributes to the formation of diammonium sulfate aerosols, which have adverse human health impacts. And who's to guarantee that the fertilizer isn't used in excess of the receiving land's need? A lot of chicken manure out in my part of the country is used in great excess of the land's P demands, chicken manure being relatively low in N).

 

I've read that a decent percentage of chicken "litter" (manure) in this country is fed to cattle.

 

I'm not a vegetarian, mind you, and virtually all of my food comes (for reasons of convenience and economy) from a "conventional" grocery store. I'm just someone who feels I know better and should do better. I'm also not a farmer, so I'd be delighted to hear that some of the statements I've made (above) are erroneous - it'd make my conscience that much easier!

[Debbie Meier]

I'm not a vegetarian, mind you, and virtually all of my food comes (for reasons of convenience and economy) from a "conventional" grocery store. I'm just someone who feels I know better and should do better. I'm also not a farmer, so I'd be delighted to hear that some of the statements I've made (above) are erroneous - it'd make my conscience that much easier!

 

Without being directly involved in the industry it is hard to know for certain what is fact, fiction or fears. There are pros and cons presented for just about every argument but they all seem to come to the same conclusion, if the manure is handled properly there will be no problem if it is handled inproperly there will be a problem, this holds true for both confinement and free range. Here is a link to a website with an overview of a Manure Applicator Expo, there is ongoing research at ISU.

 

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Pages/com.../Su09/expo.html

[Debbie Meier]

I've read that a decent percentage of chicken "litter" (manure) in this country is fed to cattle.

 

Have not heard of it done around here, but they are feeding by-product from the ethonal plants to cattle, and when we were in Wisconsin we fed wet barly from the brewerys to the horses. I did a quick google search, found conflicting reports and fears and then the following report from the MS Research Facility http://msucares.com/pubs/bulletins/b1045.htm, maybe I'm wrong but I tend to follow the reports from USDA and the college research facilities over what is published by other sources. I didn't do a lot of hunting, but there is a lot of reading available. Can't always believe what you read in the news. An example is the latest headlines in Iowa after the latest "puppy mill bill" was passed "Iowa Bans Puppy Mills", imagine the disappointment as the 60 dogs had to be returned to the breeder that were seized last week.

 

As far as using litter, if it is a standard practice I would suspect that the use would be limited by availability and what the cost is of other feed sources.

[juliepoudrier]

Re: the litter thing. I think things like this are more believable to folks, regardless of the source (or lack thereof) of information because of knowledge of historical feeding practices. For example, if it weren't for research into prion diseases, I would imagine we'd still be feeding ruminants to ruminants. No one paid much attention to that practice until it resulted in a human health issue. I wouldn't be surprised if farmers who live near chicken houses wouldn't find chicken litter a satisfactory protein source. It solves the problem of what to do with the waste when it's cleaned out of the chicken house, and I imagine it would be a very cheap source of feed (since the chicken farmer wouldn't then have to deal with the cost of proper disposal). Win-win for the farmers, but probably not so much for the animal eating the manure.

 

Odd stuff is fed to animals as a protein source. The fellow I used to buy hay from used to feed his cattle the leftover cotton from the ginning process. It looked pretty much like a normal cotton bale only greyer/dirtier. Since it was essentially someone else's trash, it could be gotten cheaply. He said his cattle ate it well. If I had time, I'd look around and see if I could find a nutritional analysis on cotton.

 

J.

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

Another forum thread was started by a new shepherd who'd sent her first lamb to slaughter. Sending an animal we have heretofore cherished to be killed is very real and shepherds reconcile the life&death contradictions differently.

 

When we brought our new mothers and their get into the barn, we penned them in jugs bedded with fresh yellow straw, watered them immediately and fed them a leaf of flowery third cutting alfalfa. That evening we provided a grain mix too.

 

I loved being in the barn in cold weather, the ewes warmed it up and I relished the yeasty smells and the sleepy grunts and rustle of the sheep's feet in the straw.

 

If I had fed them manure I couldn't have taken their lambs to market.

 

And yes, we made money with our sheep.

 

Donald McCaig

[Debbie Meier]

I did find another article last night, can't find the link now, that mentioned that feeding litter is not a new practice, it seems like the way it is done is different, they talked about rotating animals so that one would clean up after the other. Sorta like letting the chickens go through the cow and horse manure but on a grander scale.

 

It would be interesting to see studies on it to determine if by processing the litter through other animals was better or worse for the enviroment and for us vs. other disposal practices where the concerns about contaminated ground water and such are of issue. Ultimately it has to go somewhere and no matter where it goes there is going to be a chance of it coming to us.

 

Also, I was thinking about the factory style farms and their feed source handling capability (specifically hogs). They have large bins off the end of the barns, augers, tubes and drops into the feeders, the semi comes through to refill the bins regularly. In order to do something like the litter feeding I think that they would need to regear their system or have it converted into pellets, which I think is a heat oriented process and should treat for some of the health related deals along with increasing the cost. I would be more concerned about a small operator handling the byproduct incorrectly then I would a large factory style operator.

 

Now there is another deal, what is the feed mill putting into the feed when dealing with mixes? From what I have been told it's not much different then dog food, what exactly is in chicken meal and what is added to make the protein and fat levels match what is on the label. We had one dog food that the dogs did great on, it was a owned by the local egg producer, all of their cull and dead chickens were hauled to the plant ground cooked and turned into kibble, and yes, dogs eat feathers their organic matter too. It was all about trying to convert by-products into saleable and useful products. We woud still be feeding it but they moved their retail outlet to an inconvient location, last time we purchased the dog food it was around $17.00 for a 40 lb bag.

 

Deb

[Sue R]

Google "feeding poultry litter to cattle" or "feeding chicken litter to cattle" and you will find a wealth of sources explaining the pros and cons, the process (the litter is composted or fermented before feeding, which destroys or inactivates many pathogens), and the limitations for feeding this product, including withdrawal periods to avoid pharmaceutical residues in the meat (from such residues in the litter).

 

The recycling or reasonable use of many "waste products" (poultry litter, grain by-products, fermentations by-products, food processing by-products and so on) is an efficient use of resources when done well and within healthy limits. It also reduces the amount of discarded materials and issues with disposing of waste products.

[Debbie Meier]

I just remembered the system that they are using just south of us, lots of turkey farms. They are hauling all the manure to what they call the "Cooker", it;s going through a high heat compost process stored and then spread out on the fields as high quality fertilizer. On another note, when we secured our kennel license that was one of the suggested feces disposal processes, high heat compost. Our dog poop goes into the horse and sheep manure pile and cooks, later it gets spread out on the surrounding fields.

[Debbie Meier]

I did some more surfing this morning looking to see if anyone is looking into the different agriculture related claims, here are a few links, there is one addressing Food Inc.

 

 

http://www.animalag.org/myths.aspx

 

http://www.animalag.org/animalfacts.aspx

 

http://www.animalagalliance.org/current/ho...mp;Section=Main

 

http://animalagalliance.org/current/home.c...=Press_Releases

 

 

Here is a link about Big Agri-Business

 

http://www.alternet.org/story/13900/

 

As I read and research I think I'm seeing a tendency to put large farms into the same catagory as Big Agri-Business. When I think of all the huge operations around here they are incorporated but family run, they still have facilities that would be considered "Factories" but I don't think they are what is described as Big Agri-Business

[Ooky]

Hi Debbie,

 

Sorry it took me a while to reply (have been off line, and not had time to read the rest of the thread at this point so excuse my butt-in if this has already been covered), but thank you for your really informative responses. They are really interesting to read - I've never even been to Iowa, and would not claim to know how the farms in you neck of the world are run. However, it sounds to me from reading this, that your area tends to follow all federal Best Management PRactices (BMPs) and stipulations of NPDES permitting requirements through the Regional Water Quality Control Board, which it is my understanding definitely is not something that goes on everywhere. Different RWQCB are more or less strict, depending where you are. Also, a lot is done in some areas to get under the cutoff for reporting requirements that would even make you susceptible to certain regulations.

 

From what I underatand, the deal with animal maure from CAFOs (Concnetrated Animal Feeding operations) is that they produce way too much manure to be used locally. At a certain point, the costs to ship the manure away from the source to be used as fertilizer far outweighs the cost of just buying chemical fertilizers, so no one does. Thus, there is an excess of manure, and in a lot of cases, some manure is stored, sometime in improperly constructed lagoons with seepage to groundwater or subsurface flows, or overfilled so that it spills out and contaminates that way, some is improperly tilled down in areas where it will wash out, etc, etc. Here is a link (just look at the executive summary) that kind of summarizes this problem, which is what I've heard of over and over. I'm not at all saying this is what is happening where you are, I'm just saying apparently it is in a variety of places to create the problem that can be measured in lots of CAFO-heavy areas.

 

For example, the EPA estmates that someting like 1/2 of the nitrogen and 1/2 of the phosphorus from agriculture contaminating the rapidly dying Chesapeake Bay is from animal manure sources (mainly chicken manure up there), and this is even after new, stricter regulations came into effect in the late 90s. A large proportion of the rest of the nutrient contaminant load is from row crop agriculture - i.e., chemical fertilizer runoff. So in that large watershed, you've got an excess of manure going eventually to the Bay, while at the same time you've got an excess of chemical fertilizer going into the Bay. Clearly, too much for the ecosystem to deal with.

 

Resistance to using manure produced by Louisiana dairy farms

 

White paper discussing EPA findings in Chesapeake Bay - see top of page 4

 

This has turned into a great discussion, I'd really like to thank people for it as it is quite fascinating!

 

But it is being used as fertilizer, the lagoons are temporary storage, right now as I type they are positioning the pumps on the lagoon next door, it will be pumped out down a long embilical hose that is attached to a tractor and knifed into the fields around our farm. Each year they apply it to a different area based on soil requirements, additional fertilizer is applied as needed, or sometimes straight lime.

 

Each spring and fall tractors with tankers hit the fields, soil samples are collected and adjustments are made. Some are running low till, some rotational farming, some chopping corn stubble and leaving it on fields, some baling the corn stuble and removing. We have a big cattle feed lot to the north of us, they also run two cattle confinement barns, during late fall and winter their cow herd comes up from southern Iowa to eat the corn stubble. Compaction rates and erosion is being monitored constently. Waterways have green space between the fields and the water, extra watershed with wetlands and wildlife habitat are being promoted. The number of pheasants and quail running around our area would make a bird hunter drool.

 

It's kinda strange, we get asked "but doesn't it stink all the time?" No, about 3-4 times a year it smells, typically when they are applying manure. Within view we have two hog finishers one southeast one southwest, one nursery just to the north west, the outdoor feed lot to the north and a cattle confinement building to the far northwest. And it's not that we are used to, people come up to work dogs during the summer and are amazed come harvest time to see how close the confinement buildings are to us.

 

ETF link

[Sue R]

We used to have a couple of barns that needed cleaning out each year. Sure, it was pretty strong when it was spread but in a day or few, the scent was largely gone but the fertilization remained. With my husband's feeding system (pasture from April until December, or as long as the weather lets us, and feeding hay on the very fields where it was harvested - resulting in "in one end and out the other" recycling of nutrients), we have hardly ever had to apply fertilizer to our fields. We do lime occasionally but always pull soil tests first and are conservative in our time of application and amounts applied. Many recommends are too high.

 

A large farmer in our area spreads manure on snow - one of the most wasteful practices around.

[Debbie Meier]

Recently I heard of changes coming down the pikes here in Iowa requiring facilities that housed over a certain number of animals to have ample manure storage space to get them into spring. I think they are going to or have placed a ban on spreading on snow and frozen ground, it all runs off into the watersheds, but don't quote me.

 

 

Reading the article about the Dairy farms I could see whereas there would be places where it would be more difficult to spread manure properly, especially on pastures where it tends to sit on top and easily runs off. When I look out over the landscape there are filter strips that are for wildlife habitat and one pasture otherwise for as far as we can see it's all cultivated fields, lots of space to spread manure. There are companies that make a business of running tractors with big tanks hauling manure from the confinements out to the farmers.

 

Quite a long time ago (80's) when we lived in Wisconsin there was a Horse Livery operator that would have the kids clean his barn by wheelbarrel load and leave the piles out in the pasture. At the corner of the pasture was a watershed that led into a state park and then into a small lake. The EPA stopped in and told him that he needed to deal with his manure in a different fashion or be shut down.

 

 

I really wish that people would understand that when they are protesting factory farms and their produts they are more then likely protesting family operations that are trying to survive, just because the facility is built and operated in a certain fashion does not mean that it is a Big Ag demon. The other day there was a meeting in Ankeny, Iowa with Vilsack in regard to Big Ag, google it, it puts Corporate Ag into a different light, seperating it from the farmers. Here is one article: http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regi...1cc4c002e0.html

 

 

Deb

[Debbie Meier]

Ooky, here's a link to a notice posted on the Iowa Pork site in regard to the EPA sending out letters to select hog and dairy operations, I think it relates to the White Paper link you posted, also further explains requirements here in Iowa:

 

http://www.iowapork.org/Newsroom/NewsForPr...54/Default.aspx

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

FYI http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership...l?hpid=talkbox1

 

Donald McCaig