Back in
September, we told you about slaughterhouse giant Cargill’s announcement
to end its acceptance of cattle given the feed additive Zilmax. This prohibition
on Zilmax is something Cargill’s American rival, Tyson, had already implemented.
How did these companies arrive at their decisions? Beyond
the acknowledgement of a mysterious video showing laming cattle at one of
Tyson’s slaughterhouses, little information has been released.
Details about the actual content of the video were finally exposed
by Reuters late last month after two reporters filed Freedom of Information
requests. The Reuters article revealed the disturbing reason that those cattle
were laming: their hooves had fallen off.
We now know that over the course of two days, 17 heifers and
steers hobbled down trailer ramps at a Washington state Tyson slaughterhouse.
According to Keith Belk, professor of animal science at Colorado State
University, who reviewed photos of the laming cattle, the animals’ feet were
“basically coming apart.”
Dr. Temple Grandin, widely regarded as the world’s leading
authority on farmed animal welfare, equated the pain these animals experienced to people having their toenails yanked off–imagine
that agony. Now imagine being forced to walk on those raw stumps onto a trailer
and then forced to stand on them during hours of transport.
Animals must be stable on all four legs during transport, as
a moving trailer requires that they constantly shift their weight to remain
standing and avoid being trampled. This is challenging and exhausting for able
animals. It’s difficult to fully fathom what these severely compromised animals
experienced.
After these torturous journeys, animals are unloaded yet
again and forced to walk to their deaths.
What did all of the hoofless animals have in common? They had
all been fed Zilmax. Billed as a growth-promoter, Zilmax is fed in the last few
weeks before animals are sent to slaughter.
Zilmax has a close cousin, Optaflexx, which is manufactured
by a competing drug company. Zilmax and Optaflexx belong to a class of drugs
known as beta-agonists,
which includes ractopamine, a product already banned in 160 countries.
A number of serious side effects has been documented in
cattle fed beta-agonists. In fact, reports indicate that in the two years after
the introduction of Zilmax, the number of cattle who had to be euthanized at
U.S. slaughterhouses increased nearly 175 percent. Other reports list
pneumonia, bloat, stomach ulcers, brain lesions and blindness as “adverse
events.”
As pointed out in our September coverage, while Cargill and
Tyson have discontinued their acceptance of Zilmax-fed cattle, they continue to
accept cattle fed Optaflexx.
This desire for maximum growth in minimum time is typical of
today’s factory farming model. Thankfully, you can help end the suffering by
moving toward a plant-based diet. To learn more, go to ChooseVeg.ca.
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