Free Republic

I know that video clip going around looks awful, but let me give some context here. There has been extreme heat and humidity in Western Kansas and cattle have died. This is normal, and 10,000 head total statewide is not a “mass die-off that will cripple the beef supply.” Not even close. There are roughly six million cattle in Kansas. Of those, over two million are “on feed” in confinement feedlots in the western half of the state. In the former United States, something like 125,000 head of cattle are slaughtered per day, Monday through Friday, with a reduced kill...

TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- The Humane Society of the United States and other groups are petitioning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to start regulating confined-animal feeding operations under the Clean Air Act. The groups submitted the 69-page petition late last month asking that emissions of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and other gases be curbed. EPA spokesman Dave Ryan said the agency will review the petition and respond within 120 days. The EPA is wrapping up a study of emissions at 24 U.S. feedlots, but doesn't have enough information yet to decide whether confined-animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, need more regulation. "We...

When calves at Kent Albers’ feedlot look up from the feed bunker, their ringed mouths look like a “Got Milk?” ad, only in this case, it’d be, “Got Distillers Grain?” It’s no exaggeration, the humorous way the distinct color of the grain makes a full golden circle around their mouths. It’s lip smacking good stuff, full of the flavor of baked corn and more than 20 percent protein, and cattle just about eat the feed bunker along with the feed in it. Eat is what producers want their animals to do in winter when they need extra calories to maintain...

TORONTO (CP) - It could take half a century or more for someone infected with prions - the cause of mad cow-like diseases - to start showing symptoms, say researchers, who drew that conclusion after studying a similar illness among Papua New Guinean people who once feasted on their dead. Their findings suggest that the number of human cases of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD) could end up being much larger than originally suspected, say the researchers, whose study is published in Friday's edition of The Lancet. With 160 cases, the United Kingdom has the highest number of recorded cases in...