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I had to do a double take, I know farming is intensive but can you have a farm where you have 18,000 cows in one complex waiting to be milked?
1,800 would be an eye opener but you could imagine having 10 large barns close together...does Texas keep their cows indoors for part of the year?
Plus you'd expect the milking to be on rotation rather than having presumably the entire herd waiting...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65258108
Nearly three million farm animals died in fires across the US between 2018 and 2021.
This part suggests it's not even an uncommon occurrence.
That's 2740 per day if my maths is right.
Mudanjiang City Mega Farm has over 100,000 dairy cows! I think we need to adjust our understanding of intensive farming!
Buffablows ??
18,000. Blimey, it makes the Dairy in Mostyn where we buy produce look tiny with it's 250 cows !
Obviously we don't really understand the scale of "factory farming" as db says. Given massive methane potential with that number of animals together disaster is a significant risk I suppose. What also struck me was in a disaster (particularly if you're a cow) like this how only one person was injured. Does that indicate that it was a mainly mechanised facility? If so what does that say about animal welfare? And I'm a meat eater but it does make me shudder.
Holy Cows?
Mass production of BBQ Beef Burnt Ends?
. Does that indicate that it was a mainly mechanised facility?
iirc it was in a milking facility on the farm, top end milking parlours are largely automated.
Given massive methane potential with that number of animals together disaster is a significant risk I suppose.
Was it a disaster?
As I said earlier, with 1,000,000 animals a year dying in fires in the US (2740 per day), is it a disaster or is it just a regular Tuesday?
iirc it was in a milking facility on the farm, top end milking parlours are largely automated.
There's a small dairy farm in the Peak District (near Hope I think) which has a fully automated milking system. The cows just sort of walk into it when they're ready to be milked.
Cows are actually quite good with routines apparently and once they learn where to go you can supposedly just leave them to it.
Buffablows ??
Cowabanga!
I think you're probably right BruceWee but was trying to highlight that given the potential explosive gas capacity and low human involvement its not surprising these things happen and that animal welfare must be minimal.
I went to the aftermath of a fire on a pig farm with my dad when I was young. He'd called in to see how the damping down was going. Burnt and exploded pigs all over the place. Smelt pretty bad too. Maybe why I've never missed bacon since becoming a vegetarian when I was a bit older
As I said earlier, with 1,000,000 animals a year dying in fires in the US (2740 per day), is it a disaster or is it just a regular Tuesday?
Interesting to consider what we term a 'disaster'. So this was about a week's worth of deaths.
A week's worth of UK road deaths would probably be about 35-40 - but if we had a pile up where 40 people died in one go, we'd probably term it a disaster.
1m a year still sounds like a lot though, with a total cow population of 100m I think. Although the typical life expectancy of most of them is probably very short, so it's prob less than 1%.
From the size of the cloud, it looks like more than one cow jumped over the moon…
As I said earlier, with 1,000,000 animals a year dying in fires in the US (2740 per day), is it a disaster or is it just a regular Tuesday?
1m a year still sounds like a lot though, with a total cow population of 100m I think. Although the typical life expectancy of most of them is probably very short, so it’s prob less than 1%.
Remember the count is for all animals, not just cows though...
According to the AWI, nearly 6.5m farm animals have been killed in barn fires since 2013, of which about 6m were chickens and about 7,300 were cows.
Between 2018 and 2021, nearly 3 million farm animals died in fire, with 1.76m chickens dying in the six largest fires over that time period.
Not that it makes it any less shocking.
As I said earlier, with 1,000,000 animals a year dying in fires in the US (2740 per day), is it a disaster or is it just a regular Tuesday?
Overwhelmingly chickens, though. The scale of battery chicken farming is so huge that it would be easy for one fire to kill a million chickens.
ok, so this one is more like 25 years' worth of cattle fire deaths in one go. (there's a sentence I didn't think I'd be writing when I woke up this morning)
So 'disaster' is probably a suitable term
I drove from the south of England to the North of Scotland in 2001 at the height of the foot and mouth outbreak. The sight (and smell) of the constant pyres regularly over that 600 miles journey will never leave me.
It's hard to conceive the volumes of methane 18000 cows must generate and the thousands of acres of crops required to sustain them (with all that nitrogen going into the waterways from the fertilisers used for the intensively grown crops to feed the intensively reared cows). It's part of the world's food production system which I'm glad I'm no longer a consumer.
I think it was foot and mouth disease that originated in US cattle farming. Thats killed a fair few.
I think it was foot and mouth disease that originated in US cattle farming. Thats killed a fair few.
First recorded F&M cases are from Italy in the 1500's.
does Texas keep their cows indoors for part of the year?
I think the majority of US cows are kept in sheds all the time, like battery farming.
If so what does that say about animal welfare?
Animal welfare? This is America. Have you seen the state of their beef rearing "farms"?
fed on grain, pumped with antibiotics and growth hormones, never see grass, disgusting animal husbandry.
US intensive farming is utterly repugnant. Just sick.
South Fork dairy. JR is going to be upset.
fed on grain, pumped with antibiotics and growth hormones, never see grass,
And that's just the farmers
Had to familiarise with the UK dairy industry for work. It's a pretty horrific business and really challenged my acceptance of animal derived products. But cheese...
I'm far from vegetarian by any stretch but the dairy industry is the bit that I'm most uncomfortable with. Yet it seems to be the thing that, as a society, we're most accepting of. It's relatively easy to find high quality beef, for example, with really good welfare standards. Avoid supermarkets and shop at local places, farms shops or even online. Most of our beef comes from cows reared year round on the Peak District moors. Very, very low intensity and low input from a farming perspective.
But where do I buy a pint of high welfare, low intensively farmed milk?? Nigh on impossible.
"fed on grain, pumped with antibiotics and growth hormones, never see grass, disgusting animal husbandry."
And they produce milk containing levels of blood and puss that far exceed European standards. Could be a Brexit bonus that comes our way soon, we need to be very vigilant about food standards.
I've seen many a video where Americans that have lived in Britain for a while eating the exact same diet as they did back home (Mc Donalds and the like) who have returned to the States and immediately been sick, put on 2 stone, come out in sweats etc as their bodies readjust to the poisonous American produce.
But where do I buy a pint of high welfare, low intensively farmed milk?? Nigh on impossible.
Agree! It's difficult. But it IS out there. This dairy farm in the midlands https://www.instagram.com/vinefarmdairy/ have a vending machine for their milk. I visited while doing some work on their site. Brilliant idea & the locals love & use it
More of this!
But where do I buy a pint of high welfare, low intensively farmed milk?? Nigh on impossible.
Up here in galloway we have Cream of Galloway ethical dairy farm, thankfully its only 5 miles from my house otherwise id be vegan rather than vegetarian.
thankfully its only 5 miles from my house otherwise id be vegan rather than vegetarian.
Interesting. This is a route I could have taken (if I had a similar farm nearby) but elected to just do away with the whole thing as I know I don't have the capacity to be that selective.
Do you find you have the discipline to only have dairy products (so the obvious milk/cream/cheese, but also products with milk in it such as chocolate, biscuits, cakes etc) made with dairy from this farm's produce? So therefore do you turn down dairy when out or at friend's houses?
Do you find you have the discipline to only have dairy products (so the obvious milk/cream/cheese, but also products with milk in it such as chocolate, biscuits, cakes etc) made with dairy from this farm’s produce? So therefore do you turn down dairy when out or at friend’s houses?
Its easy enough as I'm a bit weird (or so ive been told), haven't ate biscuits/cake/chocolate for years and haven't ate a meal out since 2015 due to eating a specific diet (originally for my health then for spms), haven't been to anyones house for years either due to spms so its quite easy when my world consists of what is contained within my 4 walls. Been a strict veggie since I started work at 17 (1990) and was earning my own money
Not exactly a shining example for dairy farming:
Even here in Angus, there are plenty of large cattle farms where their beasts are never outside, young calves go into a big shed and a few short months later they're in a truck heading for the supermarket shelves as 'prime grass fed Scottish beef'.
They're fed on grass silage and permitted concentrates, are never outside and grow relatively fast as they're warm and not wasting calories on daft things like running about. The farm I live on has around 200 head at any one time; the next farm to the west has over 1000 and sprays their partially composted liquid slurry back onto the fields regularly. Lots of it washes onto the back roads.
Just up the hill there's a large organic farm, mostly for beef production and they have several hundred cattle outside packed into feed lots, clearly demonstrating what you can get away with whilst still being able to claim the 'organic' label.
Organic? What a con; the same farm used to produce carrots organically by running a propane burner over the spring seed beds, just before the carrot seedlings showed, thereby burning off the worst of the weeds. Then come the autumn, the crop is covered in black plastic, with a layer of straw on top to insulate and also to hold the plastic down. In what way is this process beneficial for the environment? Yet, organic vegetables are very aspirational and are good for the environment, aren't they....
I was working* on a farm over the summer and apparently milk margins are so low that their main source of income was actually selling the older dairy cattle for meat as the yield starts to drop. Economically the milk is just a byproduct of the meat industry.
*not in an agricultural capacity, and farm is a loose term as the owner just owned the farm and had near zero day to day involvement with those who ran it. It was however a very low intensity operation, what most people probably like to think of when they imagine where milk comes from.
Just eat venison instead of beef, if you can get it.
It's dear...
Just eat venison instead of beef, if you can get it.
Not when the butchers see me coming by selling them at a "artisan gourmet" price.
I love venison but cannot afford the "posh meat/price" for posh people.
Also, £10 for a rabbit/hare? (at my local in Newcastle ... yes poor people), that will learn you for trying to eat cheap.
Just eat venison instead of beef, if you can get it.
This advice has a wiff of the guillotine about it.
[to be fair, pre vegetarianism I used to eat it a lot as the local farm had a butchering license and was remarkable value for money when a half carcass came with 6 legs, 4 shoulders and as many livers as you could take for pate]
This advice has a wiff of the guillotine about it.
LOL! That's a good one.
High stakes cattle farming. IGMC.
I like the gallows humour..
Anyway, good venison is cheaper than good beef in this part of the world and is readily available from local butchers, when in season.
You're only paying for the handling and processing, not for rearing the animal and there's too much of it running about anyway.
But where do I buy a pint of high welfare, low intensively farmed milk??
Organic milk has to be grazed on grass outside for "most" of the time apparently, so there's that. Clearly it can be abused, although whilst you may see cows in a shed on an organic farm it isn't necessarily the same cows all the time.
Some cows are kept outside regularly as I see them all the time, and on my local rides I have become fairly familiar with their movements. Of course you can't tell what proportion of all cows that is, because the problem herds are the ones you don't see.
selling the older dairy cattle for meat
Thats actually the norm. They use cow meat for the likes of ready meals or even pet food.
[to be fair, pre vegetarianism I used to eat it a lot as the local farm had a butchering license and was remarkable value for money when a half carcass came with 6 legs, 4 shoulders and as many livers as you could take for pate]
I wish I could get them at that price. Since I love bbq the mentioned of this meat instantly makes me want to fire up my bbq.
Anyway, good venison is cheaper than good beef in this part of the world and is readily available from local butchers, when in season.
You’re only paying for the handling and processing, not for rearing the animal and there’s too much of it running about anyway.
I would eat venison over beef any day if the price is right.
I don't drink milk that often, probably once in every 3 months. The milk must be proper milk as in with plenty of cream and fat like Jersey cow milk or the like. Anything less I don't drink. Must be full fat.
If anyone wants to be healthy, eat less or in moderation and balance.
I was thinking it'd have to be a bloody big explosion to wipe out 18k cattle, the blast radius you'd need for the space that many cattle take up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Texas_dairy_farm_explosion
After the explosion, the fire spread swiftly throughout the holding pens, where thousands of cattle were crowded together.[5] As a result, the vast majority of cattle at the facility perished.[7]
According to Castro County Sherriff Sal Rivera, the explosion was caused by a machine known as the "honey badger," which he described as "vacuum that sucks the manure and water out". Authorities believe it may have overheated, igniting internal gasses such as methane.[9]
Anyway, good venison is cheaper than good beef in this part of the world and is readily available from local butchers, when in season.
Free if it runs out in front of your car*
*Of course, there’s the insurance claim and a new car, but the meat’s free. Around these parts, it’s a known hazard, and not just on the narrow country lanes; I missed one by about a car’s length a week or so ago, came straight through a gap in a hedge.
I have been visiting an organic farm recently for work and it is a fab place. They produce organic meat and veg and are self sufficient apart from buying seeds and the compost to start them. If only all farms were like it.