Vohs and other deserve compensation in US value

[rkaiser]

I was thinking this morning how this fellow is probably screwed as far as bull sales this year, and maybe down the road.

I think he deserves compensation for the cattle that are to be sacrificed in American value.

The same government that is allowing packers in this country to sell their boxed beef at American value, and therefore price beef to Canadian consumers at American value BECAUSE OF BSE, should compensate this fellow and others with that same American value BECAUSE OF BSE.

Sometimes wish it could have been my cow; my press release would have been a bit different than Mr. Vohs.

[intr3est]

Rkaiser, why would his bull sales be affected. We as beef producers know that the science says (and current science seems to be the only determinant) that there is little chance that any of his young bulls should have been exposed to the same feed! If it is found that the feed company was at fault for not following feed bans etc, then it would also make sense that he should be entitled to compensation from the lawbreakers. This is one thing that I have not seen as of yet on this discussion website, are the penalties due to a feed company responsibilites, should they break the laws. We as beef producers should be entitled to the same consumer laws that are afforded to anybody. If feed companies or packers are not following the law, who should be responsible for lost sale dollars. If it turns out that the feed is from an international source would it not make sense that the governing bodies who are regulating the feed industry not be responsible for any losses incurred? Now granted, if we were ever to go back on those international regulartory bodies, we better have an alternative export market, because trade would be impacted, for sure.

[intr3est]

I should add that I realize rkaiser is talking about the value of the animals to be culled by the situation. and I should ask if anyone knows the CFIA policy now on these culling decisions? Will all animals in this herd be destroyed, or just those born within a certain time frame? Will this timeframe policy be affected by finding a case outside the feed ban timeline? Not sure if there is a definite answer, just wondering?

[kato]

I would think that he won't be paid what they are worth, being purebreds.

On another note, a fellow I know quite well told me the other day that his neighbour, who is a trucker, has hauled many many loads of meat meal from Iowa to Canada. The only feedmills who ever bought that meal were located in Alberta. Otherwise it went to pet food manufacturers and such.

This was a while back, but who knows, it may be relevant. It certainly makes a person think. We also keep hearing how Canada imported supplements from Britain and Europe, but does anyone know if they made it all the way to western Canada? I would think it wouldn't get past Ontario due to distance.

I sure hope they can help solve this mystery with the information from this last case. If this cow can help answer these questions, then this unlucky fellow deserves to be compensated royally. We will all owe him a debt of gratitude.

[grassfarmer]

Intr3est, I don't know why feed companies aren't held responsible - they weren't in Europe either. I assume it must be because there has never been concrete proof that BSE is spread through feed. Tough on producers as they certainly don't feed the "ground up cattle remains to their cattle" the way the media always portrays. It bugs me that in all the years we have had BSE no-one has stood in front of the camera and said:

1 No farmer feeds his dead cattle parts to another animal.
2 No adult beef animal can contract BSE by ingesting any form of feed supplement
- if it doesn't get it by day 3 of life through feed supplements it gets it environmentally.
3 The link between BSE in cattle and vCJD in cattle is unproven - there is only very weak evidence of a possible link.
4 Trust beef it is still a damn sight healthier than either factory farmed pork or poultry.
5 It's also safer than farmed salmon - the pellets they get fed in the UK are made from slaughterhouse waste plus they have high levels of heavy metal contamination.
I could go on and on - I suppose many people have tried to tell the media the truth but sensationalism is what sells. As someone smarter than me said "in this era of 20 second news clips that we live in, Perceptions are real - facts are negotiable"

[intr3est]

grassfarmer, one fact that I'm still struggling with, is that they claim vCJD is from BSE, but where does CJD come from. There are 10 times the cases of CJD and they say they can determine the difference between CJD and vCJd, so does this mean that CJD is spontaneous or does it come from eating your own species. If it's spontaneous then why is it not spontaneous in all species? Same arguments as before, hopefully someone will soon catch on and expose the facts, or lack of!

[intr3est]

grassfarmer, one fact that I'm still struggling with, is that they claim vCJD is from BSE, but where does CJD come from. There are 10 times the cases of CJD and they say they can determine the difference between CJD and vCJd, so does this mean that CJD is spontaneous or does it come from eating your own species. If it's spontaneous then why is it not spontaneous in all species? Same arguments as before, hopefully someone will soon catch on and expose the facts, or lack of!

[nerves]

Wilheim and Cheri Vohs are neighbors of ours they are good honest people. We also own a herd bull together. It was a shock when Wilheim told us about his misfortune, since Wilheim does not use processed feed, his feed rations are mainly silage and oats with mineral.He has a nutrionalist hired to balance his rations to minerals. Now one time he bought feed pellets and feed them through a creep feeder because one of the neighbors said they were impressed with the way their calves were preforming. How many of us use pellets in an attempt to cut costs? Are we all being setup for a huge fall. As farmers and ranchers we are on the front lines of all this, the feed companies and the goverments that control and regulate must be held accountable not making stupid dumb-ass coments. All this rendered stuff and bone meal needs to out of the system period not in dog-food cat-food or fish-food etc. How many babys have put dogfood in thier mouths? How many people feed fish in thier dugouts and then take water from the dugout for the house? It is very frustrating to see our neighbors take the heat for this, the goverment wants to take 20 purebreds an 10 grade cows what about the rest they will be worthless nobody will want to buy them. As far as bulls there is about 30 charolais breeders within a 60 miles of Wilheim's house it is very competitive area to sell bulls in. How do you think he will do? If you talk to Wilhem he is more concerned about what will happen to the cattle industry than what will happen to him. I have alot more to add but am getting worked up..

[grassfarmer]

intr3est, No you don't need to eat other humans to get CJD. Mark Purdey has done research on CJD and it is on his website - he reckons there are environmental factors to play in many of the clusters of CJD found around the world. One that comes to mind is the clusters found underneath take off lanes of the major airports in the UK and in NY city (the Long Island cluster)

I think there is no doubt that the huge problem we had with BSE in the UK was that this naturally occurring "disease" was unintentionally magnified and spread through rendered animal remains getting into calf milk replacer. Canada seems to be suffering either from a few sporadic cases or maybe one cow with BSE getting rendered.
Get real though how many people will die of smoking in Alberta this year - where are the scare stories there?
They figured in the UK if they allowed the OTM cattle back into the foodchain it could theoretically create up to 2 cases of vCJD in the next 60 years!

Nerves, I'm sorry to hear of your neighbours problems - it is a terrible stigma to attach to someone when the problem is not of their making. Despite all the cases we had in the UK this was never an issue - it's a shame all these people here seem to be held up as guilty of something - like feeding illegal products when they weren't at fault.

[intr3est]

Grassfarmer, my comment about cannabilism was to point out how stupid it is to attribute this all to feeding rendered product and not looking at science like Purdy's. when it comes to livestock, yes they blame practices of livestock producers. When it comes to human cases of the same type of affliction or desease, they don't have a reason. For all we know it might not even be environmental but a genetic variance or mutation, from years ago! As the genetic pool becomes smaller, this is also a possibilty. Just a thought. There's still more questions than answers!

[intr3est]

Nerves, this is the type of message that needs to get out. Your neighbors will need a bit of extra help with sales etc. I think if you and their other neighbors get out and tell more and more people this type of info., they will be supported. The charolais competition as you put it, should realize that this could happen to any producer and maybe might even be willing to support the Vohs a little more. God forbide, but their nighbors might find themselves in the same situation.

[DNaker]

As a producer who was put under a CFIA quaratine my heart goes out to the Vohs. It is not a great feeling to have your future in doubt through no fault of your own. As a producer you can control many things that affect your operation but to have your operation effected by a disease that you had no part in leaves you feeling helpless. I wish them all the best.

[DNaker]

Having been involved in the TB eradication zone in Manitoba Mr Vohs probaly will not receive fair compensation for his animals. CFIA has a cap value of $2500/head. Producers in the zone area have been trying to get this changed for years with no luck.

There is also the stigma of being quarantined. There is no reason in @#$## that anyone shound not buy livestock from Mr Vohs in the future but human nature is human nature. Even though,producers in the TB eradication zone, have been tested numerous times and came up clear, there are producers who once had a thriving purebred market that have now gotten out of it bcause of the difficulty of selling animals stigmatized in being in a zone. So for all you producers who have supported Mr Vohs in the past keep on supporting him in the future. From what I understand it was a quality herd in the past and wiil continue to be a quality herd in the future

[cakadu]

I am sad that the Vohs have gotten caught up in this through no fault of their own and I truly hope that they can recover from this. It must be so very difficult to know that YOU have played by the rules and done everything you were supposed to and you still end up with problems.

Like many of you, I wonder about the origins and transmission of BSE, or the whole TSE thing. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't BSE occur spontaneously? Granted, it is not common at all, but it still can occur on it's own, at least from what I've heard and read about it.

If that is the case, then why are we so up in arms about 3 cases? There are some 5.5 million cattle in the country and even if the odds were 1 in a million that it would occur all on it's own, then it would stand to reason that 5 could potentially get it.

The other thing I think about is the fact that grassfarmer has talked about it being passed in milk replacer. Could that be why we have seen it primarily in the old dairy cows versus beef cattle - at least up until this latest case. Most dairy calves are fed milk replacer.

A few years back I heard a food safety expert (professor emeritus) talk about e-coli. He said that what we know now about e-coli is barely scratching the surface and is essentially the tip of the iceberg. If we have been studying e-coli so closely for years and still don't have much of an idea about it, wouldn't it stand to reason that, notwithstanding all the research in the U.K., that we are still a ways off from knowing anything definitive about it as well?

As usual, there are more questions than answers.

[grassfarmer]

There is a review of literature relating to BSE and possible connection to the milk replacer at: <http://www.priondata.org/data/A_milktransmission.html>