Mad Cow Mania
Mad Cow Mania
With cattle prices high and inventory low it seemed like the ship had finally come in for America’s ranchers but then consumers learned about pink slime, and last week in California a dairy cow tested positive for BSE, immediately US beef exports to countries like south Korea and Japan took a hit. This is the Open Range report for Thursday, I’m Susan Allen stay tuned. When you’re a rancher it’s always a “what’s next” scenario and many times incidents outside your control affect the bottom line. The fact that no meat from the cow testing positive for BSE entered the food chain and that our Ag Departments extensive surveillance system, one that tests 40,000 cow s a year worked, doesn’t seem to make a difference to media sensationalists . In a Wall Street Journal article the USDA Chief Veterinarian John Clifford was quoted as saying that “while Mad-Cow disease is most commonly spread through tainted feed it wasn’t the case with this cow”. He called this case a “rare atypical type” apparently Mad Cow can occasionally appear without cause, possibly a genetic predisposition rather than an infectious pathogen. Officials do not believe there’s a risk other animals are infected and despite the fact no tainted meat entered the food chain and US beef hasn’t been banned yet from any export countries, this is a tough pill to swallow for our ranchers
