THIS IS THE BIGGEST NEWS

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, September 16th, 2013

This is the biggest news in commercial meat of this year ...and probably for sometime to come.

"Washington -- The Centers for Disease Control on Monday confirmed a link between routine use of antibiotics in livestock and growing bacterial resistance that is killing at least 23,000 people a year.

The report is the first by the government to estimate how many people die annually of infections that no longer respond to antibiotics because of overuse in people and animals."

It's not like you and I didn't already know it ...but for the first time, the US government is admitting that people die from factory meat ...and they are telling you how many die from it every year.

"So what?" you might ask, "the factory farms will just stop or cut-back on their use of antibiotics." Not likely, brother.  Not without a big fight.

This is the equivalent of a declaration of war in the minds and pocketbooks of factory farms.

Factory farms CANNOT just cut-back or stop using prophylactic doses of antibiotics ...and hope to stay in business.

You can't have a cattle feedlot without huge doses of antibiotics for animals ...whether they are sick or not.

You can't raise chickens on a factory farm without huge doses of antibiotics ...in chicken farming, antibiotics are considered essential to rapid growth of the animals.  The chicken you eat today was an egg 30 days before slaughter.

Doctors have been screaming for this for years.  Doctors have almost run out of drugs to kill the drug-resistant bacteria that come from the CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations.)

Don't get me wrong ...I use antibiotics on my ranch.
But I probably use them less than you do on your own children.
Because of that, my beef will never be certified organic.

In the coming weeks and months, you will no doubt hear from the big factory meat producers, saying "this problem is only due to a few irresponsible meat producers."

Don't you believe them.

ANY reduction in the use of antibiotics by the big factory farms will have a tremendous impact on their profits ...they will scream like stuck pigs.

EXPECT factory farms to fight back ...and fight for their lives.

EXPECT a big fight in the US Congress to protect the factory farms ...keep an eye on which Congressperson and Senator votes to kill this report from the CDC.

For those of you, like me, in Argentina ...expect the government here to go along with whatever the US government says is OK.

El Calfecito

You may recall my story of early this year about a little calf that got rejected by his mommy.  Well, here we are about 9 months later and I'm happy to report that the little fella is hale and hearty ...and getting bigger everyday!

I want to eat him ...but My Missus and even the gauchos won't let me!

But there is hope for my asado, yet!  Everyone is beginning to realize that a 375 lb pet is a pain in the ass ...even if you don't have to take him for walks or feed him.

To date, he has broken almost every big flower pot we have, eaten my wife's strawberry plants, and left a huge, signed, organic art installation right in front of our kitchen door.  Other than that, he's a great lawnmower ...kind of a "lawn-roomba"

...and, since he's so tame, he has a strange and perhaps useful effect his more savage little friends.  Ordinarily, those little calves would not go anywhere near a human ...let alone, venture away from their mother.

The old farmer literature is full of examples of using animals like our little Calfecito to pull loads and implements.  They are so smart and so heavy and strong ...and eminently train-able.  In the old days, the task of training a young ox (a castrated male bovine that you are not planning on eating) was given to boys of about 8 years old.

Well, we don't have any 8 year old boys on our ranch ...and I can't see any of us taking the time to train this delicious little guy to "gee and haw."

Stay tuned for more about our all-grass, no-grain, no-antibiotic, no-hormone, stress-free little buddy!

Yum.

Cows are not Chickens

A lot of regular readers check-in on this blog whenever something strange in the cattle industry pops-up in the mainstream news media.  Since we here at YM read the trades ...so YOU don't have to ...it's time to talk about Zilmax.

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?