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Sweet Times For Cows As Gummy Worms Replace Corn Feed
PolygamousRanchKid writes "As the worst drought in half a century has ravaged this year's U.S. corn crop and driven corn prices sky high, the market for alternative feed rations for beef and dairy cows has also skyrocketed. Brokers are gathering up discarded food products and putting them out for the highest bid to feed lot operators and dairy producers, who are scrambling to keep their animals fed.
In the mix are cookies, gummy worms, marshmallows, fruit loops, orange peels, even dried cranberries. Cattlemen are feeding virtually anything they can get their hands on that will replace the starchy sugar content traditionally delivered to the animals through corn.
Operators must be careful to follow detailed nutritional analyses for their animals to make sure they are getting a healthy mix of nutrients, animal nutritionists caution. But ruminant animals such as cattle can safely ingest a wide variety of feedstuffs that chickens and hogs can't.
The candy and cookies are only a small part of a broad mix of alternative feed offerings for cattle. Many operators use distillers grains, a byproduct that comes from the manufacture of ethanol."
Cows evolved to eat grass.
No good came from feeding them corn. I can't see how feeding them gummy worms will turn out well.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Not only does it taste better, but corn and "alternative" feed is directly linked to the evolution of resistant ecoli strains. Only reason to feed cows corn, or corn sysup in the form of gummy worms, is due to farm subsides making corn literally cheaper then weeds.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
How come when something like 25,000 people die of malnutrition every day, food likely fit for human consumption is going to cattle? I bet it's all just a few days out of date too.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
I grew up on a small farm with free-range chickens. Chickens are omnivores. They aren't quite as good at digesting weird things as ruminants, but they come pretty close. Consider that both are quite well adapted for eating grass. It's tough to get much in the way of nutrition out of grass, but they both manage it. In fact, their digestive systems bear some similarities. While a ruminant will puke up there food to reprocess it in their mouth, the chickens have a gizzard for a pre-stomach. The gizzard is full of rocks, and has a strong band of muscles around it which grinds the food apart before it ever gets to their stomach.
Furthermore, we fed our chickens scraps. You have to, as the summary points out, be careful with nutrition. Chickens will gorge themselves on moldy bread, cookies, etc. instead of proper food if you give them a chance. But if you're careful to not feed them too much junk at a time it can be quite economical, and the chickens love it. We used to get rejected hamburger buns and feed it to them. There's nothing quite so amusing as tossing a single bun into the air, and watching all the chickens scattered across a couple acres come barreling up to you, flapping and squawking.
This isn't new, and it isn't really news. I'm sure it happens more now, as the designed food gets more expensive, but it's an old practice.
They should raise buckwheat on some of their pasturage, and encourage the corn growers to do so too.
Buckwheat has a bulk starch content of approximately 70%, bulk protein (including lysine, making it more complete than corn) of about 18%, and a fair amount of vegetable fats.
Its real claim to fame is that it goes from germination to harvest in a little over 2 months, and thrives on poorer soils. It prefers cool weather, and usualy produces about 30bu/acre.
It also improves soil nutrient availability to other crops planted later.
If it doesn't freeze in the corn belt again this year, like it didn't last year, it would be a good crop to attempt, as it could easily offset feed costs, and avoid "graining" their cattle on refuse gummybears.
On a side note... remember that post from last month about the complex system theorist predicting food riots?
Water is the constraint, not land. There is plenty of land available but no water to make it grow anything. What is needed to feed the world is agriculture that uses as little water as possible so arid conditions can be used for sustainable farming.
Farming corn only makes sense if fresh water was available in infinite supply and land was in short supply. Sadly the reverse is true.
Look up "dessert". Or do you think the dust bowl was an issue because the seasonal land didn't appear? No, it is the lack of water that causes problems. Not the lack of land.
Next time you watch starvation in Africa, take a hard look. What is missing? Water or land?
No doubt you vote for Romney, you sound like that type.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So far the free market has not done that. I doubt it ever will, the free market tends to prefer cheap and fast over good. When we had a free market in medicine we had snake oil being sold.
The lowest information actors will be sacrificed over and over, and not for the gain of the rest of society, but for the gain of the wealthiest few.