Zilmax or zilpaterol is a drug administered to cattle at feedlots ...and you may be glad to know that Argentina does not allow it. The US feedlots, of course, love the stuff.
What popped-up in the press recently was the fact that US meatpackers do not like Zilmax ...and recently took steps to ban cattle from feedlots that use it.
Giant commercial cattle operations fighting giant commercial cattle operations ...gotta be a story there!
Well, here's the skinny on fat Zilmax beef cattle:
The drug makes cattle fatter faster with less feed. It also has a reputation for making beef even less tasty than feedlot beef already is. Even worse, it is said to make tender cuts like steaks tougher.
But if you're a feedlot operator, more-faster-cheaper ...is gonna beat "better" every time.
Feedlots, however, don't sell to consumers ...they sell to meatpackers. Meatpackers sell to consumers who might (or might not) take offense at less tasty, less tender sirloin ...especially at a time of very high beef prices in the supermarket.
So, as you might imagine, meatpackers were slow to accept cattle that were tougher and less tasty ...but eventually all of them had to accept Zilmax-treated cattle because EVERY feedlot started to use it.
What made the news about a month ago was that a major US meatpacker back-tracked and informed the feedlots that it would no longer accept such cattle.
I didn't write about it at the time because ...hey, I've been a little lazy ...and I was a little suspicious.
I have no great love for meatpackers OR feedlots ...and I couldn't quite swallow the story that meatpackers were cutting-off Zilmax feedlots simply because they wanted to provide the public with a higher quality product.
As it turns out, a major beef publication (We Read the Trades so YOU don't Have to!) published a story about meatpacker complaints that Zilmax treated cattle can't walk very well.
Since cattle walk most of the way through meatpacking operations ...it's important to the meatpackers that they walk well. If they can't walk very well (or not at all) it slows down the production line.
Now THAT make sense.
Of course, the feedlot operators are screaming that without Zilmax their costs are going to go up and they will eventually go out of business (a pretty standard response from the industry.) They are also howling that the walking problems are due to only a tiny few of feedlots that don't administer the drug properly (also a very standard response.) And finally, "if everyone would just use the drug like Merck says in the instructions, we can all go back to making some money."
What's all that go to do with chickens?
The chicken industry has been driving the cattlemen crazy for years.
The centralization and drug regimen of the chicken producers have dropped consumer prices and increased profits tremendously. (Almost the same thing with hogs ...which are getting more and more Zilmax everyday, too.)
Both chickens and hogs reproduce a lot! Eggs everyday, litters of hogs every few months.
Cattle rarely give birth to more than one offspring at a time ...and the gestation period is just like humans: 9 months. Add to that the months a newborn calf needs to nurse from its mother before he can be shipped-off to the feedlots ...and you can see why cattlemen are jealous of the others.
So cattlemen have been trying ANYTHING they can find or think of to get similar production out of cattle. That is what has given us doped-up, anti-biotic filled, kill them before they drop dead, tasteless, tough, can't-walk cattle.
I guess you can't blame them for trying ...but nature has a brick wall for industrial cattle.
Taking the cowness out of cows has produced a pretty poor product. WHO KNEW?
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