.. ET SEMBLE-T-IL AUSSI D' UNE PARTIE DES PATTES!! LES DOULEURS ÉTAIENT INSUPPORTABLES ALORS QUE LES BÊTES MONTAIENT LA RAMPE MENANT A L'ABATTOIR ET PENDANT LE TRANSPORT BIEN SUR AUSSI ALORS QU' ELLES DEVAIENT TENIR SUR LEUR PATTES ........BRISÉES !!
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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