Whatever happened to the guy

[daretodiffer]

Just came in on this thread. Seems a lot of pious commentary in the postings. I think the item by rusty1 illustrates the lack of thinking behind the hot air that is coming from all the corral fence quarterbacks.

"Our Liberal eastern buracrates have faied us as did the tracking system.
So lets be carefull that we only point fingers when we know the facts and evaluate things objectively."

The statement made in the first sentence is absurd when it comes from the person who believes the second.

"There is enough bad politics without having idiots raising cattle who have no idea what they are doing".

Thankfully the industry has Stevek who will surely share all his ideas about the right things for the idiots to do.

[farmboy1]

Stevek,
Alright, he was from Fairview. The fact is, this cow did not get sick because of poor management. She had an illness that a vet could not treat successfully and probably could not diagnose. To me, this guy did the right thing in the way he got rid of her. I get real p.o.'d at the people who have a sick animal and market them outside the system. That is, take the animal to an un-inspected slaughterhouse and turn them into hamburger and retail it. Now, THAT is greed and stupidity. When I get an animal that has to be slaughtered, I ask myself, "Would I eat this animal?" That's why everything that I dispose of is sent to an inspected plant. I personally don't think there should be any un-inspected slaughter of animals allowed in Canada. It is allowed in my home province and all it will take is one problem with an outbreak of human sickness and then you will see some real damage to the beef industry.

[Bruce14]

I stand corrected. According to public opinion here, I guess I was way too hard on the poor farmer who was only doing what everyone else does with a sick animal.

And according to one post, "I do not for one minute think that the farmer who shipped the cow made the conscious decision to take the chance of screwing every livestock farmer in the country in order to make a personal gain." I thought that's exactly what he did when he dragged a diseased animal onto the trailer and tried to sell it as food. I guess I was wrong.

I agree that all abattoirs should have to be inspected. The one we use is. We also will not send to slaughter any animal we not eat ourselves.

I am sure glad we haven't seen any "real damage" out of this incident.

[carebear300]

Bruce I agree with you if an animal is sick and you wouldn't eat it it shouldn't be sold to anybody else. That is the way honourable people operate but nowadays that isn't the norm apparently. Like usual we will have to spend untold dollars and waste piles of time doing all the extra paperwork just to help eliminate the unscrupulous operators. Not much of a commentary on our modern society is it. Now the cattle producers have fell to the bottom of the barrel just like big business. I hate it!!!!!!!!! Not talking about the vast majority, thank goodness.

[Muttley]

The cow was sick, she should never have been shipped!!!!

The cow should however have been put down and tested. Some of the blame should lay in the farmer, no doubt. But some should lay in the hands of the vet that treated her. We are to trust our vets just as we are to trust are own doctors. If there ever was a time in the vet's mind that he did not know what was the problem he should have looked into it further.

I am sure no body ever dreamed it was any thing like mad cow.

I also think we have mad cow in other cows in Canada. I do not believe it only happened in one, I think it was this guys unlucky day that the powers to be caught this one. How many others not showing as bad a signs have went through.

If we had some other person running our gov't in Ottawa the states reaction would be different as well!!!

[farmboy1]

Everyone has made some good points here. Also, I apologize for the statement "real damage". Not well thought out at all. I hope we never see another case of "real damage" to rival this one. The shame of this whole situation is that, in this case, the system worked and we are still being hammered. I agree that there are probably more cases of BSE out there and a lot of them will not be detected. The meat inspectors will have to be ever vigilant and not hesitate to slap "hold" stickers on any suspect cattle and perform further testing. Correct! Sick cattle should not be sold. However, some are and the inspection system HAS to detect these animals. Also, the tracking system has to be up-graded to follow all animal movement. This is going to be a real nightmare for anyone that handles a large # of animals (dealers, large feedlots, etc.)They will have to develop a way to do this. In this situation, very little of the animal's history could be traced and that makes it very hard to reassure our trading partners. Unfortunately, unless big bro steps in with $, I know who is going to have to absorb this extra cost.

[daretodiffer]

"If we had some other person running our gov't in Ottawa the states reaction would be different as well!!!"

Wild speculation and likely based on the person's personal political bias. Everyone's a polititian, not just those who get elected. And yet there's lots of complaints about politics being involved in trade disputes.

[ValueChainFX]

This whole situation has forced us all to look at the system in place today! We all know there are inequities in the system, and now the will to do something about them. (As if we didn't know before!) Now it is more urgent to get on with it. What has happened has already happened and we cannot change that. But we can look at the industry and support some of the more positive changes that are being proposed.

We have enough studies and enough reports that we can get on with some of the things we need to do. Trace back and trace forward needs to be improved, you as producers need more access to federal plants so you can market product not only across the US boarders but across Canada as well. The inspection system needs some changes and yes labs are part of that. Checks and balances need to be put in place and not just at the producers cost, the costs need to be spread across the entire supply chain continuum.

These are things we need to change, are we going to put energy into changing them or keep going around in circles?

[lonewolf]

I have had downed and diseased animals on my farm and a good portion made it onto the truck. These animals are not necessarlily bad for human consumption . So I am going to pose this question. Lets say a producer takes the initiative and tests his whole herd for a variety of diseases. Lets say the tests come back with two seperate diseases both of which are considered safe for human consumption. Let us also assume that disease A affects 20% of the herd and disease B affects another 10% How many of you would euthanize rather than shipping the animal. For me simple on the truck. I will some up by saying the good of the industry cannot come at the expense of the individual.

[15444]

Way to go farmboy1!

I sometimes have a hard time finding where some people think all this money in beef farming comes from! For us actual full time farmers, we can sympathize with the Alberta farmer. Only hobby farmers can afford to take a loss on a downer cow.

[rusty1]

All this retoric reminds me of the old saying "Hind sight is 20 -20.

[ALICIA]

Muttley- This is a public forum. Just keep telling the public you think we have more mad cows in Canada, and you may just keep the boarder closes for the seven year ban. S. Up

[stevek]

Amen to that one ALICIA, this is very public. I don't mind telling people that I personally would never take a downer cow to a slaughter house, but I also don't consider myself a HOBBY farmer when this is the only way I've made a somewhat living for almost 28 years and raised 3 kids doing it. Your gut feeling should be the first one you consider and 99% of the time that should be the one you go with.

[jensend]

Whether there are more cases of BSE in Canada or not (and if you think about it you have to admit Muttley is probably right) we will have to adopt practices that will find any add'l cases and be able to trace back. I think we will shortly be using RF tags and scanners and have to be able to provide complete histories of an animal's stay on our farms. The biggest problem is that the expense will very likely be borne by the producer and it will knock more small operators out of the industry. The other side is that the large extensive operations will have trouble providing complete documentation. All this information gathering is okay if you can integrate it into your mangement practices anyway but other than that it will be a time consuming expensive process.

[jensend]

Hi Every one .. first time here .. finally a topic that ruffled my feathers...
Im my world , Beef consumers are now thinking that Bush has found a way to penalize Canadians for not supporting the Iraq War .. first the Soft Wood Lumber issue then .. Mad Cow Diease ..
whats next ? ... just food for thought