Talk:Cattle feeding/Archive 1

Advertising?
The subject of this article seems fine to me, I have nothing against grass-fed beef, it's just that the link at the end seems to make the entire article seem like an advertisement. User:Paddy_O'Leibowitz_McGoldstein 22:22, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Assertion about BSE
I removed the unsourced and unverifiable assertion about a "mistaken assumption" regarding a lower risk of BSE from grass-fed beef. In point of fact, BSE has been verifiably associated with contamination of animal feed with mammalian animal tissue, particularly nervous system tissue; in the case of grass-fed rather that feedlot beef, this is not an issue. See (for example), , and. MCB 01:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC) Apologies Dgies...I'm new and didn't realize this forum existed. Although I don't disagree with the proposed health benefits of grass fed beef, I do object to the including hot button vocab words like "factory farming" & "cannibalistsic." I was merely trying to bring some balance into what is a very one sided story. Perhaps this more recent change can be a compromise.
 * Restoring It is far from settled whether eating animals with BSE is a cause of vCJD. It is also widely suspected that cannibalistic feeding is a cause of BSE.  While I don't have good cites for it right now, I believe the assertion should be restored until better documented.  In your 3 citations, one is from a beef lobbying organization and is obviously POV, one is from the USDA, which is heavily lobbied by that same organization, and the lsat one discusses banning animal feeds because of the concern of BSE and vCJD. Dgies 20:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Dgies, I'm not quite sure what you are saying here. I think we agree with each other, but there was another editor who recently removed the feedlot -> BSE/vCJD connection, not me. What I removed in May was unsourced language that asserted that there was a mistaken assumption that grass-fed beef had a lower risk than feedlot beef (that is, that feedlot beef, due to the possibility of cannibalism of beef nervous-system tissue, had a higher risk than grass-fed beef). The sources cited support that connection, and whatever you might feel about the USDA, I believe it to be a reliable source for Wikipedia purposes. --MCB 22:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It wasn't meant personally. I recently made a revision adding info on the vCJD logic in favor of grass fed and  Vpivet quickly reverted it.  Looking ofer the changelog I took this to mean there was some "consensus" on the talk page to not list anything about BSE and vCDJ in this article. I guess all I'm saying is while I haven't properly cited, the cattle feed-BSE-vCDJ link is widely publicized enough to merit mention here. Dgies 22:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely; your logic seems fine to me. Cheers, --MCB 23:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Sustainable Agriculture
I notice that this is in the sustainable agriculture category without comment. While raising cattle on grass is probably more sustainable than raising them on corn, it should be noted that in many countries pastures are heavily fertilised in order to maintain high stocking levels. Lisiate 01:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Good point. In addition, care should be taken to show the pros and cons and the cases in which grass feeding might be more or less pragmatic than corn feeding or some combination. Lequis (talk) 01:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd like to see information on how much water, fertilizer, etc, goes into each pound of free-range vs. grass/pasture-fed vs. corn/grain-feed beef. I have seen some estimates of that in other places.  But not any good sources.
 * How much does each cost? What's the estimated cost of range depletion (run-off, degradation of land, etc)
 * How many pounds of grain do we spend to get one pound of beef?
 * ~ender 2009-12-06 16:33:PM MST —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.226.19.194 (talk)

I agree wholeheartedly with the previous user - substantiated facts and figures are incredibly important when discussing this issue. Sources are needed desperately for this section. Rickr85 (talk) 02:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

generalizing
I've reworked and expanded this article to be on the debate between corn-fed vs grass-fed cattle, rather than just a one-sided argument for grass-fed beef. —Quarl (talk) 2006-08-12 22:24Z 


 * I've continued the trend set forth above by providing more background on the cattle industry and providing counter points to ensure a more balanced article. vpivet
 * Good. —Quarl (talk) 2006-10-10 03:25Z 

About that, The article is Still quite bias against corn fed beef and is not only using shakey sources, but also completely dishonest. I wish I were more computer savy, Can someone do a better job?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.171.177.54 (talk) 07:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I made a few minor edits to make some statements that have been in the article without references since 2008 more of what they are: speculation. I also edited the verbiage about growth hormones. Characterizing growth hormones (which are lab-created copies of naturally occurring hormones) as "unnatural" is biased, and continues to contribute to the perception that bovine growth hormone is akin to steroids. GaherisKR (talk) 02:40, 6 April 2014 (UTC)GaherisKR

Removed dubious statements
I removed the following 2 dubious and unsourced statements (introduced by anonymous with this change): Common Man 19:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "Beef is the second most important source of Omega-3 fatty acids and other essential nutrients in western diets. " -- This is not true, as the article Omega-3 fatty acid clearly describes. In fact, it is one of the least important sources.
 * "Grass-fed beef in many countries lacks the consistancy of grain-fed product, mostly due to the vagaries of weather in major broadacre cattle production countries like Brazil and Australia." -- I heard the opposite is true, but I can't cite a source for it just now. Unless we have a reliable source we should leave it out altogether.

Antibiotics
I clarified the usage of antibiotics and cited the risk factors involved in treatment of bovine respiratory disease, the most common disease for which antibitotics are prescribed. -vpivet I added the most common form of antibiotics used in feed and cited some positives. I didn't see anything about BRD though. Was it removed? SiriusAngel (talk) 19:53, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Corn Fed
Growing up in rural Minnesota, I saw a number of small farm operations. When cattle were fed corn, they were fed the whole plant - ears, stalk, leaves, everything. This article's section on "corn fed" seems to imply that only the corn kernels are fed to the cattle. I'm not sure that is true or that the industry would waste the corn plant in that way, since cows can digest the cellulose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.88.14 (talk) 17:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The statement "Complete adoption of farming practices like grass-fed beef production systems would dramatically increase the amount of land needed to raise beef.[19]" seems to ignore the amount of land needed for grain-fed beef production. If one assumes that the grain-fed cattle are in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) (as posited in the first sentence of this section), then less land is needed for the cattle. But the feed still must come from acreage. More cattle in feedlots means more grain grown elsewhere and moved to feedlots. Instead of acreage being used for grasses and roaming cattle, it is used for growing corn for feedlots. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.20.198.161 (talk) 13:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That is correct. And the net land use can be either greater or less depending on management.Redddbaron (talk) 00:49, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

The word "harvest" is unclear
75.82.149.127 (talk) 01:53, 19 July 2015 (UTC)