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The Monday jump-start, coffee and pig waste optional
By Gina Spadafori
June 23, 2008
Want another reason why factory farms should matter to you? Imagine what happens when floodwaters set loose the lagoons of pathogenic hell from Iowa’s pig operations and everything that’s dumped on one of the most intensely “modern” agriculture regions of the world? A tip of the hat to Luisa at Lassie, Get Help for drawing the lines between the dots:
Consider what the floodwaters swept up and deposited in Iowa’s streets and yards and homes: factory farm waste, fuel, sewage, pesticides, God-knows-what deadly pathogens… “Officials recommended that anyone working or living in the flooded zone get shots for hepatitis and tetanus,” reported the New York Times. Doug Hawker, an environmental specialist with the Department of Natural Resources, told the Times: “It’s bad. We honestly don’t know what all is in it, but it’s an absolute witches’ brew.”
Lassie, Get Help, indeed. Luisa also points to excellent commentary at the Ethicurean blog.
Makes me very happy I’ve signed on in support of the Prevention of Farm Cruelty Act on California’s November ballot, because not only is factory farming horrible for animals, it’s bad news for those who eat (which is, like, everyone, vegans included) and the land as well. Yes, I am well aware that it’s supported by the Humane Society of the United States, so don’t bother to tell me what an idiot pawn I am, slippery slope, blah blah, blah. Just as I refuse to accept the argument that I have to support puppy-mills to protect reputable breeders, I refuse to accept the argument that I have to accept factory farming to keep animal-rights extremists from making all domesticated animals extinct.
I support humane, sustainable and local agriculture, including animal agriculture. With my vote and my wallet. More reading? How about the Raleigh News and Observer’s 1995 series on intensive hog farming and pollution, which won a Pulitzer Prize.
Update: Dolittler and Pet Connection blog on exactly the same topic on exactly the same day. History, or at least coincidence, is made here.
***
ConsumerAffairs.com is reporting pet-owners are continuing to have problems with Nutro foods. Lisa Wade McCormick reports:
A series of mysterious illness and death dogs Nutro pet food. Scores of pet owners report their animals became ill while eating Nutro products, then recovered when they were switched to another brand.
At least six dogs have died in the past two months, according to an analysis of complaints to ConsumerAffairs.com. The company discounts the reports, saying they are isolated and unconfirmed.
There’s a lot more. Go.
***
Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly writes about how a new generation of veterinarians isn’t so much digging the idea of cropping ears, a purely cosmetic procedure with no benefit to the animal at all. As is often the case, the comments are pretty interesting, too, including one where a certain know-it-all syndicated pet-care columnist has to eat her words about whether a Doberman with uncropped ears can be shown. (They can!)
***
Over on our DogCars.com blog, Keith writes about how car-makers are scrambling to save the SUV, by modifying these popular vehicles to get more fuel-efficiency. That’s good news for us dog-lovers, because you aren’t fitting that many dogs into a SmartCar. Or on a Piaggo three-wheeled hybrid scooter (thanks, Terrierman).
***
No, it’s not rocket science to keep two intact dogs, one of each gender, and not have puppies result. But it truly can be a serious pain to do so.
Right now, Woody (my champion, field-titled intact male; the dog on the right in the picture) is in a crate in one room, sobbing with desire. McKenzie (my champion intact female, in standing heat; the dog on the left, in a picture obviously not taken today) is sobbing with desire in a crate in another room, after repeated assaulting Drew (canine, neutered a decade ago) and Ilario (feline, neutered a month ago) with her big fanny in hopes that someone, anyone, will breed her. There is, additionally, one closed door between them, because we are taking no chances.
Usually I prefer working at home. Today, I would prefer to be in the office, leaving the star-crossed lovers to sob themselves to sleep out of my earshot. Their raging hormones is why every other pet in my house is spayed or neutered, even the bunny. (Well, not the parrot or the chickens, but everyone else who can be altered, is.)
McKenzie may be bred next spring (after she has proven herself to be more than a pretty face with field work), but after that she’ll be spayed. Bad news for Woody: Her prospective mate may be a couple time zones away, and may even be delivered in a small FedEx box with a vial inside.
As you may well imagine, if I decide to be a “greedy breeder” after all, it will be hugely, hugely profitable and well worth all the fuss and bother. How could it not be? What, with the thousands and thousands of dollars the co-owner and I have dropped (not to mention the time) in the training and competing of these two dogs, the couple of grand already invested in having them certified free of congenital defects by an open registry, and, of course, the thousands more on top-flight nutrition and veterinary care. Not to mention all the time I’ll spend raising and socializing the handful of puppies that may result.
What? You say I won’t make money? Yeah, I know. All that training and competing is part of my commitment to the preservation of this rare retriever breed — and my love of working with my dogs as individuals — and it’s not intended to be a money-making enterprise.
The level of care, of course, is what everyone here gets. Even when they’re driving me crazy.
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Before you get too far along with the toxicity issue, pig manure is not any more toxic than any other livestock manure. It is certainly less toxic than human waste since we do not share the same pathogens as a rule.
But certainly poop is poop and it serves as a nutrient base for all kinds of nasty things that didnt necessarily come from the pigs but exist in nature already. And now with this great food source these things go nuts and bloom all over the place and that is what we have to be concerned with.
You also have to ask yourself, why is this any more of a problem because its a mega-farm? the answer is - concentration. In small quantities spread over a large area this wouldnt be a huge problem even if the total number of pigs and waste was the same. But because it is all in one place it creates a hot spot that the local environment cannot absorb.
If you really want to understand the problem with mega-farms you need to understand that one fact and that pretty much answers all of the other questions.
PS. They are still dumb bunnies to me!
Comment by Bernard J. (Bernie) Starzewski — June 23, 2008 @ 10:26 am
Bernie … you need to meet Velocity. He is one cool rabbit.
And as always, thanks for your “real life” farmer’s take on this subject.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 23, 2008 @ 10:28 am
I bet he would be nice and tender!
Comment by Bernard J. (Bernie) Starzewski — June 23, 2008 @ 11:16 am
When will Nutro learn? Consumer confidence is paramount to financial success. If people even *think* that your food is poison, they won’t buy it.
If you want people to trust you, you have to behave in a trustworthy manner - and that means pulling foods at the first hint of a problem, informing your customers that there *may* be an issue and assure them that you are directing all of your efforts towards identifying it. Basically, let people know that you give a rat’s behind about whether or not their animals die because of something for which you might be responsible.
During the recalls, Canine Caviar found out that their foods *might* have had an ingredient added to some of their canned products that shouldn’t be there (was it rice gluten? don’t remember…). They advised PUBLICLY (on their website and on the Itchmo forums, staying up late into the night to get the word out) that consumers stop feeding their canned beaver (might have been others too, but we had the beaver, so that’s what I remember) and return unused portions for refund immediately.
Canine Caviar couldn’t be certain if the canner added a grain product (the beaver was labeled as “grain free”) and at the time didn’t know if the possible grain product was one of the tainted ones or not, but they TOOK NO CHANCES with our pets’ health. They took action.
For that reason, I know that if there’s a future problem with Canine Caviar’s food, they’ll stop production and inform the public. They are, in my mind, a trustworthy producer (NCI).
Nutro is not. They hem and haw and call it “coincidence”, but they do not give any sort of impression that they *care*. Are they investigating? What have they done so far to assure the safety of their products? What are the results of the food samples they’ve tested? What are they looking for and what are they finding?
If there ends up being a serious issue, how much worse will it look when people find out that you tried to cover it up - and that your delays cost animal lives? Stop screwing around, Nutro. Get the facts out there, whatever they may be.
Comment by mikken — June 23, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
One thing that astonished me throughout last year’s pet-food recalls was how ham-fisted the crisis management PR strategy was by almost everyone in the industry. I have a friend who’s one of the top crisis PR guys in the world. He tends to advise his clients to get ahead of the truth, if for no other reason than you can control it better.
The truth always comes out eventually. So pull the bandaid off quickly and get it over with. It’ll hurt you less overall.
Plus, well, being honest with customers you’d like to keep is the best way to do business, don’t you think?
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 23, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
Gina, I so hope you are right that the truth will come out, they have learned very well to keep things quiet. The other thing that bothers me is at their website under their their FAQ section was this statement:
http://www.nutroproducts.com/quality_facts.html
Q: Why is the quality and safety of NUTRO™ products being addressed?
A: We have received recent isolated reports of inaccurate information posted online regarding the quality and safety of NUTRO™ pet foods products. Many blogs and internet sites can be a repository for misinformation and hearsay regarding many topics. We are working to clarify the issue.
As for the rest of their FAQ, well….people can decide for themselves…..it just doesnt cut it for me.
Comment by Sandi K — June 23, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
What Sandi K posted makes it sound like they’re trying to deal with the “misinformation and hearsay” rather than with the actual safety concerns…which doesn’t surprise me. They’re trying to fix the appearance without addressing the *issue*.
Comment by mikken — June 23, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
I stopped feeding Nutro to my pets with the other recall last year. When I saw there were canned Nutro products involved in the recall, that was it for me although mine got only the dry. Lost my confidence in them then and it ‘ain’t never comin’ back now’.
Comment by VJ — June 23, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
I understand that the Nutro label was recently acquired by Pedigree, correct?
Well duh.
There seems to be a predictable curve for pet foods that start out as premium or niche market products and become successful. As they take up more and more market share, and are more widely distributed, you can see their ingredients “changing” over a period of months/years. Somewhere just past the peak of their curve for respect+recognition, a bigger manufacturer will buy them up. They are buying the *name* mind you, which the original company built and has already been coasting on for a little while. Then the big company mines that name recognition and the packaging until there’s no more respect left among the *informed* consumers, and the actual product bears no resemblance to the quality food that established the name.
Anyone remember when Iams was one of the best commercial dog foods you could buy? You’ll be dating yourself, too.
I used to feed Nutro, for over a decade, and used to recommend it to many clients. But not for quite a while. I watched the labels and bailed.
Pip and Moe dispatched and partly consumed an enormous woodchuck out in the large pasture today. Moe got a nick above his eye for his trouble. I think that’s still safer than a lot of what comes in bags nowadays.
Comment by H. Houlahan — June 23, 2008 @ 6:02 pm
I feed cheeseburgers and pizza. Do doubt that will have some deletirious long term effects on both Scout and myself. However, I dont think that cyanuratic poisoning is one of them.
At least if Pappa Murphy’s puts something bad in the pizza someone is more likely to raise a stink.
I think I also need to add that I do object to calling manure “toxic”. It is not all by itself “toxic” or at least not in the same sense that the crap that got into Menu’s foods was toxic. It is after all a completely organic substance. So, if you please try to refrain from using that word to describe it.
Comment by Bernard J. (Bernie) Starzewski — June 23, 2008 @ 6:39 pm
Lots of completely organic substances are toxic, Bernie. Like … oh … hemlock. Toxic is contextual, anyway. If you put that manure straight onto my lawn, you’ll kill it.
That said, a pile of pig poop isn’t a big deal. A manure lagoon from a factory farm set free by floodwaters is a very big deal, indeed. Heck, a factory farm’s manure lagoon just sitting there poses any number of health and environmental challenges, even without a thousand-year flood event.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 23, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
Bernie, what I wss told was that Mars, Inc. bought Nutro last year.
Hey, Nutro, if anyone from there reads this, we will never buy any of your products again. Period. Don’t trust you, won’t risk our animals. Trying to spin your way out this isn’t working, so come clean with what is going on.
And, don’t…even…want…to think about factory farm pig poop flooding/contaminating all those towns. Yuk. Hope they don’t have a heat wave in Iowa.
Comment by Susan Fox — June 23, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
Post from May 2, 2007, regarding Mars purchase of Nutro (last item).
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 23, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
Gina, I’m loving the pics of your beautiful dogs. Always a treat (as are the chicken, kitty, parrot, bunny, etc., pics too).
I’m off to post the Nutro info on my other internet haunts.
Thanks for the info.
Comment by Sharon H — June 23, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
Gina, I think we are saying the same thing in different ways. The lagoons are a problem indeed. They can leak into the subsoil and contaminate ground water miles away.
Now as for the definition of “toxic”. A toxic substance is something that acts as an accute poison. Fresh pig poop hot out of the pig will NOT kill you like hemlock will. So, in its initial state, it is not toxic.
But I will allow that it quickly becomes so when left lying around in huge quantities.
But again, the same applies for any excrement. You doggy’s dookie in the back yard maybe does not seem like a bio hazzard but if you gathered up all the doggy pooh from the entire city in a single location it would.
Like I said, its all a matter of concentration beyond the limits of the local environment to absorb.
Comment by Bernard J. (Bernie) Starzewski — June 24, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
test results are back on Nutro dog food — ?what it means I do not know…but in my quick search of too much zinc in dogs…pancreatitis type symptoms keep showing up…
http://itchmoforums.com/your-p.....7#msg80507
Comment by Carol V — August 14, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
actual lab result link…August 14th news…
http://www.pfpsa.org/news.html
Comment by Carol V — August 14, 2008 @ 5:04 pm