Antibiotic resistance continued

I had briefly discussed antibiotics in feed for animals on production farms and concerns that people had about building up antibiotic resistant strains that will later impact the human population. My take on it was that the misuse of antibiotics in our society among humans is far worse than any damage we might imagine is occurring from the livestock sector. To further emphasize my point, read this article about the US senate committee's trip to Denmark and the take-aways they have about the feed antibiotic ban there. A sharp increase in antibiotic resistant "bugs" without being used on animals anymore should definitely be a warning sign to the doubters out there that we have bigger problems than farmers who a responsibly caring for their livestock.

Gateway to Animal Welfare

Courtesy of my new e-newsletter: Gateway to Animal Welfare, I received a large quantity of new animal welfare articles which excites me, even if you don't care nearly as much about it as I do.

First on my list today is an article outlining how just one more use of labels to assure consumers of animal well-being has failed. It might be selling to some people, but not like it was supposed to work. You see, we have this great idea that we can sell just about anything with labels. Look at Certified Angus Beef, well, that was a success, right? So then why can't we seem to sell animal welfare certified labels with the same success. Isn't that what the general public wants to see? Better welfare for the animals may be what people want to see but either they don't want to pay for it in the grocery or they don't believe we're really providing better care. And every single time that they find out our standards aren't what they thought they should have been, then the public loses even more faith in our welfare labeling. In contrast here is another article endorsing buying these labels... hold your breath for when they decide that these standards don't match either. "High free-range standards" aren't scientifically proven to be any better for the bird either, especially as they find that the birds in some cases are even worse off in free-range. Think that over...

It sounds like they will find out in 2015 how much it costs for better eggs. Sure, we've speculated and calculated, but once supply, demand and input/output changes, then we'll finally see the true change. And will the well-being of the chickens actually be improved or is this just another example of HSUS publicly helping animals and behind the scenes having only hurt the future of healthy animal production. And then there is the extremely sticky situation of inter-state trade. So the battery eggs can't be sold in California, what about shipped?

And then there's those just "wow" moments... It's really hard for me to take this seriously.

Finally for today, here's another press release from the Ohio deal with HSUS...