bobm
Garden Master
There are 2 LARGE dairies within 10 miles of our home. The first one, we drive by it almost every day, the other one about 2x a week. I haven't seen any cow carcasses on either one. The cows live in loafing sheds where the floors are concrete with feed troughs the length of the buildings. Twice a day the cows leave the sheds along alleyways where they enter them single file to go to the milking parlor. Workers then enter the loafing sheds and scrape away feces , then wash the floors with high pressure hoses into drains that lead to ponding basins that eventually is used to fertilize pastures. Followed by a crew filling the feed troughs with a diet of silage and grain + mineral mix. Today's dairy cows produce at least 2-4 times the amount of milk than the dairy cows did 50 years ago due to selective breeding through AI. As such the cows need very good nutrition including high amount of calcium and lots of it. During very inclement weather, any stresser such as a cold virus or colder temperatures will set a crowding instinct to kick in for warmth. This will often cause additional stress on the less dominant individuals that could eventually cause severe illness and / or pneumonia resulting in death . These cattle need immediate medication ( if not sooner ) as a preventative to prevent death. Today's ill conceived mantra of our cow, chicken, pig, etc. are not raised with any medication ,etc. as somehow that makes them healthier to eat. Fact is after a certain short holding period , all medication is metabalised and gone from the blood stream. Losses are therefore passed along in higher prices to the consumer to pay for the loss.
