Awesome. Let's switch all cows to grass. You can explain why to the millions of people on the planet that would starve to death.
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Rancher feeds his cows candy due to high corn prices
- Thread starter madp
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Awesome. Let's switch all cows to grass. You can explain why to the millions of people on the planet that would starve to death.
BertramCooper
Banned
Even if they're corn-fed/corn-finished, it doesn't mean that's the only thing they eat.
Corn feeding is done as a supplement. It increases the fat content of dairy cow milk and is used on cattle before slaughter to fatten them up and marble their meat. No cow is 100% corn fed from birth to slaughter.
Devolution
Member
I would hope not. If they're not, they're not. I'll take you at your word. Are grains used to accelerate their growth? Because they're normally foragers.
Foxy Fox 39
Banned
Utterly ridiculous you imply he was grazing for puns.
Welcome to GAF. This board has the highest concentration of people who don't know jack shit acting like experts.
ConfusingJazz
Member
I agree, let's moove this thread along.
BertramCooper
Banned
Corn-finished cattle receive a high level of corn at the end of their sweet little cattle lives to increase marbling prior to slaughter.
I'm not making any sort of judgment call on whether or not it's great - I grew up on a dairy farm, so I'm far more knowledgeable on that sector - but it seems like a lot of people think these animals have been fed nothing but corn for their entire lives.
Right, but you can see how they are technically, corn fed. No one says its the ONLY thing they eat. But its the majority of their diet, and its shit for them to eat. They can't even process it correctly.
OfWhiteSkinOnRedLeather
Member
First post...
There is a vast difference between what I was talking about - cows whose majority/major dietry component is corn (along with all the other additives needed to help them sustain that unnatural diet) - and corn finished cows. While I know you're very keen to make a point and defend your family business as you often are, I strongly suspect you knew exactly what I was talking about, too.
Usually if you're putting cows in a feeding lot, it's because they are A) Dairy Cows, B) Getting ready for the sale barn/slaughter house. Grains, Corn, or "Sweet Feed" (grain pellets mixed with corn and some molasses) are used to give them more fat. Just like people, the more sugar, the fatter you get. Dairy cows however turn that energy into milk because they are milked daily. Regular slaughter cows simply store it as fat in their bodies.
If cows are in a feeding lot, they are also fed hay and/or have access to some kind of grass. It's still the majority of their diet.
"Corn fed" cows have probably less than 1/5 of their diet as corn and even then it's only toward the end. As in weeks or months rather than years.
BertramCooper
Banned
Talk to a livestock nutritionist. If it were completely devoid of nutritional value, it wouldn't be fed, especially when corn prices are so fucking high right now.
I love how everyone keeps denying it.. whatever it is... and we are all faced with record heat, droughts, crop failure, skyrocketing food prices...
like everyone said would happen, due to climate change..
This generation failed.
..idiots turning all the corn into fuel and sugar so there is none left to feed cattle and people...
HappyBivouac
Member
he must be quite a jolly
um
guy
um
guy
Devolution
Member
Dont need to. I know the corn lobbyist are in the world. Lets not pretend we live in a world where cattle nutrition matters, or its affects on people. All this started by saying cows aren't fed corn, when in fact, they are fed enough to be called "Corn-Fed." Thats my only reason for posting. Its not a ludicrous idea that they are fed a majority of corn.
Jokes that good on GAF are pretty.....rare.
Twenty7KVN
Member
LOL.
BertramCooper
Banned
What do corn lobbyists have to do with research being done by livestock nutritionists at schools of agriculture?
I can almost guarantee that I hate corn industry lobbyists more than you do - see the ethanol thread for that discussion - but let's get a bit of perspective here.
I made a thread about this earlier today, around 40% of the corn crops go to ethanol production right now.
Too expensive thanks to Obamacare.
Was it this?
That's definitely unfit for store shelves
This thread. lol.
Hey guys, theres a drought going on and theres a shortage of a plant. Wait! Feed them another plant!
Its all fucking dead!!
There is no green grass around where I live (Illinois) unless its an area that gets a ton of shade, which usually doesnt happen to cow pastures.
Hey guys, theres a drought going on and theres a shortage of a plant. Wait! Feed them another plant!
Its all fucking dead!!
There is no green grass around where I live (Illinois) unless its an area that gets a ton of shade, which usually doesnt happen to cow pastures.
triplestation
Member
Fucking corn feeding motherfuckers man.
Foxy Fox 39
Banned
BS.
BertramCooper
Banned
Yeah, it's definitely important to note that the corn crop isn't the only casualty of the drought. For anyone pressing for more grass-fed cattle, this year's hay cuttings have been horrendous.
Our corn is actually okay. Not great, but it's decent. Our alfalfa, however, is a complete disaster.
We're probably selling the majority of our dairy cattle this year. It's mostly coincidental - my dad has been planning to retire for a while now - but it's certainly an exclamation point that it's time to get out.
Our corn is actually okay. Not great, but it's decent. Our alfalfa, however, is a complete disaster.
We're probably selling the majority of our dairy cattle this year. It's mostly coincidental - my dad has been planning to retire for a while now - but it's certainly an exclamation point that it's time to get out.
SnakeswithLasers
Member
Huh? Please explain this statement to me.
Also, with regard to the corn statement: Corn is a somewhat traditional supplement to fatten up cows; however, factory farming has turned corn from being a supplement into the overwhelming source of food for tissue growth, hence for beef and chicken meat, at fast food restaurants. This isn't healthy for the cows quality of life, and it isn't sustainable for our environment, or our food chain.
Naw. I don't feel like arguing.
SnakeswithLasers
Member
If you don't feel like backing up asinine statements, why make them? Kind of a non-productive way to communicate.
Edit: Probably sounded ruder than I intended, but I'm genuinely curious.
elrechazado
Banned
Note the word "only" in what you quoted and ignored.
fallengorn
Bitches love smiley faces
It might be cheap now, but wait until the herd needs insulin shots.
Damon Bennet
Member
yo sorry dude, but if everyone actualy stopped eating meat then world hunger, climate change/warming, deforestation, methane exhaustion and many more aspects that influence the globe negatively would be much less pronounced.
educate yourself, pls
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/cows.html
We can feed more cows in a less amount of time = more meat for people. More meat for people = less hungry people around the world. But whatever.
We are talking about why cows eat corn. Not whatever you are carrying on about. Stay on topic PLS.
Onion_Relish
Member
America: where even the cows have diabetes
I don't care unless their quality of life makes my steaks yummier.
That's what I'm thinking. These cows have to be delicious.
timetokill
Banned
Well obviously there's the bits of other cows and things too
SnakeswithLasers
Member
I see what you're saying, and I know you don't want to argue this, so I'm just going to drop in my opinions below.
Meat, particularly beef, is extremely inefficient as a system for feeding people. Meaning: you get much less out than what you put in. You can feed a lot more people using the water and land you dedicate to cow production on direct to people food. Not to mention all of the acreage that is dedicated to growing feed for livestock could be redirected toward feed to people.
Nobody starves to death because they don't have a hamburger or a steak: Beef has always been a rather small part of people's diets. People starve when they don't have rice or potatoes or grains.
This doesn't even take into account the fact that we are (yes, some people deny it) going through a period of global climate change due to greenhouse gas. Cows and the scale of farming they require/encourage happen to be one of the leading causes of greenhouse gas emissions. So the droughts we are going through are partly to blame because of industrial farming and how unsustainable it is.
This farmer is stupid no doubt but there is no grass, that is the point this drought is nasty. Six foot of round bale hay(too be used in the winter) might run you $25 bucks in the 90s early 2000s... it is like 40 bucks for one 6 foot round bale and a small group of just 25 can demolish that in a day. Hell its been so hot cows aren't even able to keep a calf they just keep cycling, can't get pregnant.
My father, now in his 60s still farms, the grass is gone, water is gone. Much of that is do to the joke that is ethanol, everyone has tore up grassland to try and raise a corn crop. I'm 35 when I was 16 corn was 2.25, the shit is like $8 now it is ridiculous. . In the past during a drought you might be able to expand hay ground or buy up someones extra hay but there just isn't any out there.
My father has to feed hay and supplement with bulk pelt feed and ground feed which is a mixture of Alfalfa, corn and Molasses. Typically we only use ground feed when 'growing out' a calf prior to taking them to sale for further growing. This is not a normal situation. Typically cows receive very little corn except when a feeder calf is being grown out prior to slaughter. We also sometimes use with young cows who have had their first calf to help with milk production.
more expensive i'm guessing. remember they need to feed a lot of cows so food prices have to be dirt cheap to make the investment worth it.
ConfusingJazz
Member
Drought.
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