Slaughter House Abuse From Agriculture's Best Friend, HSUS

[shortyjock89]

Yeah, they're Dairy cows, but the public doesn't know that....once a Dairy cow reaches the slaughterhouse or sale barn, she's the Beef Industry's problem..

But, blaming the Dairy people in this specific case isn't going to fix anything...there are "producers" of every type of livestock that are not going to cull early enough, and when the cows get too old and worn out to milk or raise a calf for a profit, they get shipped to the sale barn...but by this time, alot of the animals are in SUPER bad shape, and they should have been culled two years ago.  When there is a downer on the trailer, why don't they just dispose of it in a humane and safe manner?  I don't want to eat a downed cow, but then again, I don't want to eat Dairy Bull either, but I guess that's how fast food keeps in business...it's just sad that a handful of people give our whole industry a bad name...

Educate- A good amount of people around here are really ignorant about where their hamburger or steak comes from...and alot of times, you can't tell these folks a thing, they don't wanna know.  But then they'll see that clip on the news...and BAM, everyone who owns a cow is suddenly a bad person who needs to have their animals taken away...we actually had the humane society called on us one year because the cows and calves were bawling for a couple days at weaning....I would love to educate the people around here, but where do I start?

 

[knabe]

the airplay is pretty heavy and balanced, at least locally.  the NCBA has been on and been in a good light.  they feel it will do good for the "beef" segment as quality is emphasized.  this is somewhat exacerbated in my book at least, as the government is involved as an outlet for cheap food and a safety valve for creating a demand for low quality beef, aside from the volume created by taco bell, adn the ground beef market in general.

i gotta say, the burgers i've cooked from my maine steer, are extremely juicy, taste great and beefy and dense compared to the almost soy tasting frozen patty's you buy at the grocery store and get a typical hamburger joints.

 

[Show Heifer]

I can admit I have NOT sold animals due to the fact that they are too ill or crippled to handle the ride or the "fast pace" of an auction. I have an old yella cow I love dearly that became stiffled several (many several) years ago. She moves slow and she can be obnoxious, but she would have a hard time standing in a trailer, and she would darn near be electricuted with hotshots to get her to move faster.....so here she stays and she will have a dry place in the barn, fed twice a day, until she is suffering, then I (Ok, not ME, but a neighbor) will put her down and I will bury her.  She can get around and raises a nice calf every year....she owes me nothing and especially not the $200 she would bring. If I need that money that bad, I should sell out and live in town.
I have had sheep the same way. I kept a ram for 13 years...because I loved his lambs, he was quite a character and I couldn't bear to think of the way ol'gramps would be treated if I sold him.
My animals are cared for better than a lot of kids.....and I am not embarrassed or ashamed of the sorrow I feel when I lose an animal, young or old. Too bad more people don't have my compassion and my love for their "job", like I do for mine.

Educate, educate, educate....whenever and however you can. THAT is all of our jobs.

 

[JbarL]

Like I said - I didn't see the video.

I was assuming the USDA inspectors did do their job and that the Humane Society probably waited a long time to catch something that looked bad.

What was going on that allowed this facility to use systematic, gross mistreatment processes?  Does USDA not rotate inspectors, etc?

In my business, we are taught to be extremely careful with what we say/write because special interest groups love to ambush our clients and make things much worse than they are.  I also see it happen a lot with hunting. 

Like I said, I figured this was made out to be worse than it was.  Maybe not.

With the thousands and thousands of old cows, etc that are sent to sale barns, a lot of them probably have problems in their truck/rail rides to slaughter houses.  I would think these facilities would have a process to humanely handle them.

And I still think they should have tighter security for a whole lot of reasons (not just for cameras) at one of these places. 

just another example of "downsizing"....pounds out the door is probally the same as it was 15 yrs ago  with   probally 40% less labor...ie  inspectors...vets ....ect......why would this industry be any different than the steel/automobile/ plastics/and refinery industry??.....now think one step up the food chain.... and you'll see  the same thing is happening to your local hospitals... / walter reed vetrans centers/ ...and nursing homes.....downsized..ineffecient...dangerous....and illegal......no ones watching anymore....no ne cares.....no ones accountable.......this will go away just like the videos and news accounts of hospitals and clinics  "releasing" patients "downtown" in the streets.....nursing home patients drowing and dying  inside the facility  during katrina.......many vetrans on the streets with disabling injureis and no where to go......i just dont see much help commin' from the folks that treat humans just as bad.   jbarl

 

[knabe]

great point jbarl.

there is effectively no profit anymore, as the government has torpedoes a viral chase to the bottom with labor costs as they refuse to enforce the law, leaving no choice but to use illegal labor of all sorts, not just illegals form mexico, but visa overstayers one can hire at 2/3's the price of a legal citizen.

what is the logicial conclusion.  how cheap is cheap enough?  even slavery has a cost which is you have to feed them, police them etc.  america used to have morals.  not anymore.

a massive capital transfer is underway from america to despots.  should be interesting, as the only outcome in these scenario's has always been war.

no enforcement of laws eventually ends up with anarchy.  in america, it's just more cleverly disguised compared to countries where there is no contract enforcement, ie africa, the soviet union, china etc.


if only we could do communism better.  change.  hope.  stupidity.

 

[knabe]

tom harkin, seeking relevance stated

"what we're concerned with is that the current set of regulations is not being enforced," said Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for Harkin, D-Iowa.  "these regulations exist for a reason."

i was thinking the same thing about illegal aliens.

yet they keep making more laws and there aren't enough enforcement personnel anywhere to enforce any law to have an affect on murder, illegal aliens, food safety.

but there is enough time to worry about steroids and video taping of an opponent in football.

in the same article, it was noted fully 7-21 % of inspection jobs are unfilled.  not only that, the companies that the govt' does business with FOR CHILDREN, doesn't even warrant extra attention.

I'm convinced these guys are idiots and are completely unaware of unintended consequences of involving government in commerce and technology choosing (yes ethanol)

unfunded mandates are like printing money, they both have the same consequence.  feelings shouldn't "have" to cost money.  after all, it's just change, and change should'nt cost anything.

 

[DL]

What I find most disturbing about this whole thing is the lack of appropriate responses by producers and the industry.

This is a huge problem - it is a welfare problem, it is a humane slaughter problemit is a PR nightmare, it is an industry problem, it is a USDA problem - it is our problem

Instead of making excuses (oh it looks worse than it is, oh it doesn't happen very often, oh there are a few bad apples and they must be immigrants, oh it took 4 days of filming to get these pictures, oh oh oh) why don't we step up to the plate and admit there is a problem and fix it????

 

[chambero]

What additional responses should producers and industry be making in your opinion?  What in the world can anyone do that wasn't involved in sending and slaughtering cows at this facility?  But the rest of us certainly get to suffer the repurcussions.

As a producer, we have never (and I mean never) taken an animal to a sale barn that we even had to "work at it" to get them in a trailer.  Apart from humane issues, its not worth the couple of hundred dollars such an animal would bring.  I personally have to deal with old cows we don't cull quick enough or that somehow get injured or just go "down".  But, we have "room" to deal with that.  What we do with injured or "down" animals would still be viewed poorly if showed to the world.  And I guarantee you I do it as humanely and quickly as possible.  Its not fun but its part of the "job". 

How do you make sure your typical elderly rancher with a couple of hundred acres doesn't haul an old cow to the sale he shouldn't?  Who in the world can police that other than the sale barn?  You don't usually have people I'd consider qualified decision-makers working the loading area of sale barns.

I still stand by my statement that all of these facilities owe to the rest of the industry to not only do things right but to have better security.  Do you really think that a lot of the public would think that video of a properly slaughtered animal is "humane"?

I'm sorry, but if they are letting cameras in what else are they letting in that might be a health and contamination risk?  The knee-jerk, over-reaction to these cases (pulling off the how many tons of meat out of circulation) is too severe to take a chance on a perfectly innocent process causing such an uproar in the future.  The Humane Society is not a ranchers friend - period.  Its not a very long trip from many of their members point of view to those of the average PETA member.  Are they a huge threat to our industry - of course not and I don't think they ever will be.  But they love to pull stunts that often enough allow the bottom 1% of our industry to make fools of the rest of us and temporarily cost us a lot of money.

I agree that this is a problem for the whole industry, but everytime there is an highly-publicized incident involving anything related to Mad-Cow Disease or "downer" cows the subject animal is black and white.  We all like our cheap milk, but things would be a whole lot simpler if these folks fed cows what cows are supposed to eat and didn't wear them completely out before they got rid of them.  Dairies cause more trouble with these issues, runoff, etc. than all of the beef cattle ranches and feedlots combined.

 

[SWMO]

[tr] agree that this is a problem for the whole industry, but everytime there is an highly-publicized incident involving anything related to Mad-Cow Disease or "downer" cows the subject animal is black and white.  We all like our cheap milk, but things would be a whole lot simpler if these folks fed cows what cows are supposed to eat and didn't wear them completely out before they got rid of them.  Dairies cause more trouble with these issues, runoff, etc. than all of the beef cattle ranches and feedlots combined.[/td][/tr][/table] Chambero

Amen

 

[DL]

The public - the consumer - the people who eat what we grow - do not understand the difference between a Holstein and an Angus - this is not a dairy problem - it is an industry problem and if we cannot agree on what is humane treatment of cattle and what is humane slaughter then we have a really big problem. Dividing the industy into little pieces and blaming them is not solving the problem. Ann Landers used to say the first thing you have to do to solve a problem is admit there is one - we ain't there yet

 

[chambero]

Of course it is an industry-wide problem.  The standard philosophy used by almost all businesses in all industries is to design your processes to account for 80% of your "workload".  The other 20% are dealt with on a case by case basis.  And when you are trying to police yourself you don't punish everybody in the "company" - you identify the root cause and deal with that. 

So, is this a problem at all slaughter plants or just ones that specialize in the cutter cow market?  Is it all plants that deal with cutter cows or just ones that serve the dense dairy areas?  I don't know.

At this one plant, did this go on every day or how long did it take them to get this footage?  Was it all workers?  Was it all supervisors that didn't do their job?  How many cows were going through that facility and what % were handled this way?  It's never enough to deal with the people that committed the crime, the results of this type of investigation always have to result with someone's head on a pike for public display.  Usually its never the correct head though.

The HSUS has succeeded - apparently a lot of people think this is a problem at all slaughter plants which I bet is not the case.  But to be politically correct we have to admit there is?  Just because a cow is moved with a piece of equipment, touched with a hot shot, or drug with a chain its inhumane?  There are many, many degrees here and obviously wrong/right ways to do it, but they are doing their best to take out all of the gray.  I bet they'd love to have a video of us humanely euthanizing our own animals out in the pasture instead of sending them to the sale.  Anybody want to issue them an invite?

 

[shorthorns r us]

Humane Society Stays on Offensive and Sues USDA Over Downer Cattle.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Humane Society of the United States has filed suit against USDA - sighting a dangerous loophole in the agency's regulation that contributed to the recall of more than 143 million pounds of beef. Wayne Pacelle says the agency's regulations actually contradict the assertion that - sick and crippled cattle are not allowed to enter the food supply. Pacelle says - unless we want yet another dramatic food scare we should not hesitate to close this legal loophole and establish an unambiguous no-downer policy that will also help protect crippled animals from egregious abuse. Pacelle wants Congress to pass legislation to strengthen the nation's farm animal welfare laws.

According to the Humane Society, in 2004 USDA issued an emergency rule to prevent downed cattle from being slaughtered for human consumption. However, in 2007, according to the society, the agency quietly reversed course and relaxed its rules to permit some crippled cows to be slaughtered for human consumption. The suit alleges that the loophole was promulgated without adequate public notice and comment under the federal Administrative Procedure Act. They call it - irrational and inconsistent with USDA's obligations to ensure humane handling and food safety under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act.

American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle, in a statement released late yesterday afternoon, characterized the lawsuit as an attempt to "prohibit veterinarians in federally inspected meat plants from exercising medical judgment" that is "appropriate discretion to give these veterinarians." "The consequences of disregarding federal rules and industry best practices are enormous, as we've clearly witnessed. (Furthermore,) HSUS would have the American public believe that...an animal with a broken ankle is at some dramatically increased risk of BSE," Boyle said in the statement. "Such a simplistic assertion is absurd."

 

[knabe]

Of course it is an industry-wide problem.  The standard philosophy used by almost all businesses in all industries is to design your processes to account for 80% of your "workload".  The other 20% are dealt with on a case by case basis. 

we use this technique in genomics.  of the 20 % that fail, we find a technique where 80% of those succeed. of those that fail, another 80% succeed.  in three rounds we have gotten through

80+ (0.80*20=16) 16 + (0.80*4=3.2) +3.2 =99.2

out of 40 million or so cattle slaughtered every year, i'm thinking the amount of attention is out of proportion to the outrage.  america is trained to focus on the exception and apply it to the general.  they are trained to do this by the self imposed 6th grade average reading comprehension of the american public, which coincendentily, newspapers and news shows know and tailor their pablum to.

if one had to lead their lives with the same level of exposure, existence on earth would be illegal.

 

[afhm]

Animals don't need to be treated cruely, but I don't see how that justifies the largest beef recall in history.  Unfortunatley there are only so many ways you can handle and move a downer cow.  Has anyone else noticed that alot of the video fotage they are showing is the same stuff they showed for mad cow back in the day.

 

[loveRedcows]

Yes, it is an industry problem..but I believe GREED is the major motivator in these types of cases.  Like Chambero, we never ever haul off an animal that is unable to move under its own power.  We accept the loss & put it down ourselves in a quick painless manner even tho it hurts our hearts.  We live in an area now overrun by dairies (mostly from CA) and have had a real culture shock education on the attitudes that the cows are just things by which to make money.  Downed cows are pulled out of the pens & left to be winched into trailers (no ramps) while still alive--all for the almighty dollar so the dairy owner can continue to build houses that would rival a saddam Hussein palace (including indoor swimming pools) & is tax free if built on dairy property-- & let's not forget their cruises & Cancun trips.

Yes, even us beef people have to be "cruel" on occasion--vaccinations are not comfortable for the animal, hot branding (required by law in our state) is no fun, & I have had to use a hot shot to get the stinker to move on up the line when slapping & tail twisting didn't work  -- but usually one little jolt will get their attention.  There's no need to keep the rods full blast -- if they can't get up, they can't get up.

Education of the public is one of the reasons I spend so much of my time at livestock shows talking with every one of the LookeeLoos who stops to ask questions.

 

[showsteerdlux]

Ann Landers used to say the first thing you have to do to solve a problem is admit there is one - we ain't there yet[/color]

Amen.

 

[knabe]

i still haven't seen a video of how to handle these cattle properly from HSUS, or anyone else for that matter.

i still havent' seen feedback from the dairy industry on how to minimize this.

also, is 100 % compliance the definition of not having a problem?

what is the definition of having a problem.  in numbers.  is it one?

 

[shorthorns r us]

Was the Humane Society of the US truthful in their testimony to Congress???
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maybe not. The meat industry website Meatingplace.com reported at the end of this past week that the District Attorney that has jurisdiction in Chino, California where the Westland beef processing plant is located is saying that they never told HSUS to not talk to USDA about the video they had secretly shot in the meat processing firm. In fact, the Meatingplace story says the DA's office recommended that HSUS should consult with USDA on the Downer Cow video.

The Meatingplace report says "There was never any suggestion that (HSUS) not speak with USDA. That was never our advice to them. In fact, we did recommend to them that they speak with USDA," San Bernardino County Assistant District Attorney for Criminal Operations Dennis Christy told Meatingplace.com in a telephone interview. Christy's statements counter testimony that HSUS Public Health Director Michael Greger gave at a House subcommittee hearing. He said the group withheld the video at the request of the district attorney's office."

It's interesting that the story adds that the Humane Society did not want to include USDA in their dealings with the DA's office as the public attorney's interviewed the informant working for the Humane Society. It appears that the Humane Society was not interested in getting any abuse addressed inside the plant as they were not willing to bring the video to USDA, the government entity that could have dealt with the issue almost instantly.

 

[knabe]

that's because for maximum impact, they had to release the video on their own terms.  they are the police, judge and jury.

this is why i say the american public is stupid.  not in the pjorative sense.

here's the definition of stupid just for clarity.

stu·pid  (stpd, sty-)
adj. stu·pid·er, stu·pid·est
1. Slow to learn or understand; obtuse.  (in this case, this is what i'm referring too)
2. Tending to make poor decisions or careless mistakes. (in this case, this is what i'm referring too)
3. Marked by a lack of intelligence or care; foolish or careless: a stupid mistake.    (in this case, this is what i'm referring too)
4. Dazed, stunned, or stupefied.    (in this case, this is what i'm referring too)
5. Pointless; worthless:  (in this case, this is what i'm referring too)
 
HSUS for president.

 

[knabe]

i saw this neat product for sale at the fair at the HSUS booth.