Joe Public has no hormone worries
Joe Public has no hormone worries
THE use of hormones and digestion enhancers in carefully controlled programmes is considered vital for profitable operation of feedlots in the USA.
Beef producer Alan Janzen told the Exmoor group that the use of these aids was worth $50-65 a head – £30-40/head – roughly equal to the expected margin on a finished animal.
The American public was happy to eat beef produced in this way. Attempts to develop a niche market for beef produced without the use of hormones had not succeeded: It had taken less than 5% of the market and was now declining, he said.
Mr Janzen added that he was looking forward to the imminent release of a new generation of beta-agonists in the clenbuterol – Angel Dust – family.
Incredible impact
"They will have an incredible impact; 6lb a day gain in the last 60 days and up to 10% more lean," Mr Janzen told them.
Having the advantage of hormones and enhancers meant all slaughter cattle were castrated to avoid fighting and lack of marbling in the meat.
"But if I could not use implants I would figure out ways to do bulls and push them, aiming to have them dead by 12 months," he said.
He was confident he could breed bulls with adequate marbling within five years, if he had to.
While accepting that his industry does not suffer from excessive bureaucracy and regulation, he did point to the fact that the feedlot industry is moving into fewer and fewer hands. Many producers are getting involved in the whole chain to the retail sector. These farmers are subject to random checks by government officials, and their increasingly sophisticated computerised feed mixing and distribution systems have inbuilt safety and recording mechanisms.
As an example, he said that full ingredient details and total weight of feed delivered to each yard of cattle twice a day are recorded and printed out.
Most of the cattle in his feedlots are individually identified as there is a growing demand for source-verified cattle which can be traced back to birth and full details of treatments and feeds are known.
Verification
Feeders pay government to provide independent verification of these programmes, and they would be expected to detect any malpractice with hormones. Mr Janzen is also increasingly using the individual performance records in genetic improvement programmes.
As with feed additives and implants, the use of antibiotics in feed or water is well recorded and their effectiveness checked. Mr Janzens feedlot had its own equipment for checking dung samples to see whether wormers had been effective.
Antibiotics are freely available at farm supply shops, though veterinary prescriptions are needed to buy the more modern drugs. Some product withdrawal periods are different to those used in UK. For example Cydectin pour-on for cattle has a zero withdrawal period. In UK it is 14 days.