Consequences

[DL]

I've never used any calmer on my cattle. If they act goofy, they don't get showed - it's that simple. No championship is worth getting hurt over or ruining the steer.

The year before last I had a real nice angus x hereford x simmental and he was thick, a lot better looking than the steer I showed this year. He would have placed real well. However, he had the worst kicking problem. He could kick with hind legs while he was tied but he was still actually broke pretty good. I didn't show him because I didn't want some little kid to walk in his stall to pet him and end up flying across the barn. But seriously, that was one nice looking steer.

Around here there's a problem with people acing horses at sale barns. People bring in their horse with little kids riding them. The next morning the horse's are crazy. This happened to a friend of mine from highschool. He tried to ride a horse he got from the sale and it got him bad. He had to go to the hospitial and everything... and he brakes horses and rides bulls. Just imagine if it was a young kid who got just got their first horse.

I love it when rational heads prevail karma all around! Yeah RHS the druging of horses is another whole can of worms - gives new meaning to truth in advertising. I like it to when people selling halter broke bulls at Expos or other sales need to calm them down with something - saw one once where they sale manager said you could see the bull sleeping in his stall (the owner said it wanted the public to be safe - gave a drug he knew nothing about which is known to cause paradoxical reactions) now wouldn't that have been dandy! Also the bull you buy that is drugged and goes absolutely nuts when he gets off the trailer and the buyer says he can't do anything about that - the pharmaceutical industry has changed the American landscape.....

 

[Jill]

ace sows that eat their young. 

I'm not exactly sure what this has to do with anything, but all sows will eat their young, ace or no ace, they will eat you if you are bleeding, just part of being a pig.

 

[DL]

ace sows that eat their young. 

I'm not exactly sure what this has to do with anything, but all sows will eat their young, ace or no ace, they will eat you if you are bleeding, just part of being a pig.

Maybe it has more to do with what we humans have done to the genetics and housing and welfare of pigs rather than just being a pig. We manipulate animal systems so we can control them and when it doesn't work we drug them - great, eh?! 

 

[DLD]

I'm with Jill on this one. Pigs can be carnivorous in any enviroment. Most of the "wild hogs" in this part of the country aren't feral, but domesticated pigs that have been turned loose, and they'll eat anything they can. There used to be an old man just 3 or 4 miles from here that raised pigs in big groups in big pens (like a couple of acres) and if one died, they got eaten by the others.

I'm sure that many of todays extreme confinement systems can frustrate some into aggression they might not exhibit otherwise, too.

 

[Show Heifer]

I guess my point of sows eating their young was just a point of the wide use of ace in the food chain. I was going to use horses also, but heck, we Amercians don't eat them. And it was no comment on the confinement systems used today.
Some cattle will be wild regardless of ace use, handling etc, and those SHOULD NOT be shown or sold as breeding animals. They should be hualed to the salebarn and have their heads chopped off, regardless of how genetically superior they are.  How about the liability of ace-ing a bull or heifer, then new owner takes it home, and gets hurt or killed?  I would think THAT would be a  liability lawsuit just waiting to take a farm!

 

[CAB]

Hey guys, your starting to sound a little like the peta brigade here as far as the pigs go. Don't go jumping to assumptions  or guessing what hogs are like, or what their confinement environments are like compared to being run in outside lots. If youhaven't been around both systems to compare and study the differences, you have no clue and are really just feeding into propaganda.

 

[DL]

Hey guys, your starting to sound a little like the peta brigade here as far as the pigs go. Don't go jumping to assumptions  or guessing what hogs are like, or what their confinement environments are like compared to being run in outside lots. If youhaven't been around both systems to compare and study the differences, you have no clue and are really just feeding into propaganda.

CAB - just because we may not like a certain system of housing doesn't make us PETA people. We have bred our pigs and our chickens so heavily for a single trait that we have forgotten about the ability to walk, decent temperament, and health - being concerned about the welfare of the animals we eat DOES NOT equate to supporting PETA - I think many of the things we do to animals could be done better and it is likely that increased attention to welfare and pain control and humane slaughter is the wave of the future - if we don't do it we will be told to do it - I think I just read that the veal producers group has decided to require group housing in the future

Are you aware of the 5 freedoms? chances are it will greatly impact our ability to do business - in some areas it already has -

 

[CAB]

DL, what I was trying to say was that I can tell by what is being said about the hog industry is that those that are posting up the info, have not raised very many if any hogs, and without that hands on experience they do not and cannot know which is a better system to raise pigs in. Hogs will revert to the wild state very quickly if turned loose. If they are being fed well, they will not eat the hogs or piglets that happen to die in a short time. You will have plenty of time to remove the carcass if you choose to. I did not say that those posting were afiliated with or members of PETA. I have had minimal talks with PETA members during my years, and what I was trying to say that I don't like people, weather it be PETA members or otherwise, talking about subjects that they or you have minimal or no experience, so let me be clear, " I am not calling you or anyone else a PETA member", and until you have Farrowed @ least the 1st 500 litters of pigs, please don't try to convince me that you know more than the farmer or hog man that has.

 

[DLD]

I'm not making assumptions or saying anything about how I think anybody should be raising hogs - I don't know and don't pretend to. I was just stating that I personally have observed this behavior in a number of different enviroments.

 

[CAB]

DLD, I have farrowed lots of gilts and sows out over my lifetime, and have had 5 or less, generally gilts farrowing their 1st litters that will get extremely nervous and when a baby piglet happen to get up around her nose , get excited and jump up & try to  snap @ it not knowing what is happening. I have used ace in this situation, prescribed by a vet. Sometimes that worked, sometimes not. You may have to take all the pigs away until she is done pigging and the pain subsides. Sometimes, if you want any live pigs left if you're lucky enough that the time frame fits, you can foster pigs over to another sow. I will say that sometime the crates do not allow a mother to go through the nesting rituals that they normally would, and can create problems, but that ritual out in the open can cost many piglets their lives by the sow getting up and down too much causing many to be crushed, and, or stepped on. I think this drug issue maybe way over talked about. I would like to assume that everyone is smart enough to do what is best and right for their own situations. Everyone has one person, well 2 people, if you're married, to answer to and live with the actions and consequences of those actions. That is themselves.

 

[DLD]

CAB, I will readily admit that I have very little experience in raising pigs, and I'm not arguing with anything that you're saying. If you'll note, I haven't said anything about ace (or tranquilizers in general) one way or the other. I agree with you completely that ultimately, we each have to let our conscience guide us.

 

[Jill]

Well I am stating my opinion from a postion of knowledge, we raised feeder pigs for a number of years and we have farrowed way over your 500 litter quota and it wasn't in a confinment housing system.  Well fed happy pigs in a crate or in the open will eat a bloody pig, I am not talking about later in life, but they go wild over the smell of blood that is just how it is.  I was just trying to point out that that is natural for a pig, no we didn't use ace for that, but someone was there when they farrowed to make sure the pigs were clean and dry before that went up around the sows head, they have about a 12 hour window there where some of them will kiind of loose it and generally after that they are fine. 

 

[CAB]

It's cool DLD. I wasn't trying to stir the pot, but it may seem like I have some, Or hopefully just been misunderstood. I have never been accused of being very PC.lol. I am in fact too blunt and frank. please everyone try to keep that in mind. Sometimes I think we, myself included get pulled into a post that we, I should stay out of. This drug conversation will end up nowhere b/c everyone has their own standards that they lived by and I'm not going to tell people how they have to live. Someone else can have the cop job. More than likely the cop job doesn't pay that well @ the jack pot,For Fun, Shows.

 

[CAB]

Jill, I have never seen a group of well fed hogs go after blood, but I'm not saying that you haven't and a group of sows will seem to be attacking a pig if for example it is stuck in a fence and squealing. They are just trying to protect that pig and may inadvertly bite it trying to help it, but I have never seen well fed, balanced diet, hogs go for blood. I have heard of, never seen this personally, hogs in the past being fed a animal by-product diet that have eaten people if the person falls in and the hogs were being limit fed by hand. Hogs are not carnivorous in nature.

 

[Jill]

It's cool DLD. I wasn't trying to stir the pot, but it may seem like I have some, Or hopefully just been misunderstood. I have never been accused of being very PC.lol. I am in fact too blunt and frank. please everyone try to keep that in mind. Sometimes I think we, myself included get pulled into a post that we, I should stay out of. This drug conversation will end up nowhere b/c everyone has their own standards that they lived by and I'm not going to tell people how they have to live. Someone else can have the cop job. More than likely the cop job doesn't pay that well @ the jack pot,For Fun, Shows.

I agree with you, my vet isn't into the show thing, he isn't immoral, isn't crooked, and I will let him decided what is ok for me to use, that's what I pay him for.  I for one would like to know how you all treat your animals without drugs.

 

[red]

I guess I'm like you Jill. I trust my vet. He's a good vet that has a strong dairy/beef background. An actual hands on person. I'm sure there has been times he's prescribed something that might not pass the high standards some set but he does what works. Can't say that every vet I've used provides the same results as him.

Red

 

[frostback]

Jill, I have never seen a group of well fed hogs go after blood, but I'm not saying that you haven't and a group of sows will seem to be attacking a pig if for example it is stuck in a fence and squealing. They are just trying to protect that pig and may inadvertly bite it trying to help it, but I have never seen well fed, balanced diet, hogs go for blood. I have heard of, never seen this personally, hogs in the past being fed a animal by-product diet that have eaten people if the person falls in and the hogs were being limit fed by hand. Hogs are not carnivorous in nature.

http://www.ypte.org.uk/docs/factsheets/animal_facts/wild_boar.html
Check out the food line.

 

[DLD]

I probably shouldn't, but I'm going to say this much - I've been around this deal long enough to know that if ace or thorazine or rompun left behind any detectable residue months after it's use, most of the premium sale steers at most of the major shows would have been flagged for it by now, because the majority of them have been given at least one of the three at some point in their lives. Trust me, most of those 5 to 7 month old calves aren't broke enough to stand for a serious clip job without some help. I'm not saying it's right or it's wrong, I'm just saying it's how it is.

 

[chambero]

The outlandish worrying about Ace and food safety has left the realm of common sense.  Is it technically legal to use it on show calves - no, we all agree on that.  Is it (or other commonly "abused" drugs such as Lasix, Dex, Thorazine, etc) a food safety issue - absolutely not from a measureable risk standpoint.

First of all, most of these drugs were actually developed for and are commonly used on humans (i.e. Thorazine and Lasix).  Very few drugs (including Ace) are persistent in any animal fluids or tissues at detectable concentrations for very long at all (days) unless they have been given massive doses for long period of time. 

Most of these types of drugs that aren't approved for use in food animals aren't because there isn't enough of a demand to pay for the necessary testing.  Not because they are hideously toxic to humans. 

So, I think everyone understands that anyone that uses any of these for any purpose on show animals needs to go to confession;  however, don't have a stroke over the safety of your food supply worrying about this.  There are much bigger fish to fry. 

For semi-scientific documentation on these conclusions that's easy to find:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acepromazine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorazine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexamethasone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasix

 

[DLD]

My wife took dex for a couple of weeks before our twins were born to strengthen their lungs after it became apparent that they wouldn't make it to full term. They delivered almost 9 weeks early and both could breathe on their own. at 1 1/2 lbs, they said our son was the smallest baby they'd ever had (at that time) at OU Medical Center or OK Childrens Hospital that could breathe on his own. It was unusual that his sister, a little over a pound heavier could, even.

They're both healthy, happy 8 year olds now, btw.