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MB, Canada | According to Corbitt Wall this morning, the losses due to the recent heat are likely closer to 25k than the original 10k estimates. I'm obviously a long way from Kansas, but I have a hard time imagining that 107 degrees and calm is an "extreme" weather event--we're supposed to get 90 on Sunday with a humidex of 109, and that's Manitoba in late spring. The images of the carnage have been making their way around social media, and as much as us ranchers don't like to see this sort of thing, you can imagine the backlash the industry is seeing from the public.
My understanding as to what happened (as someone who doesn't work at these feedlots) is that the black ground soaked up the heat, making the area into a sort of sauna, and without a breeze, the cattle couldn't take the combined heat and humidity (humidex). I'm guessing (with a bit of video evidence) that it was mostly the fattest black cattle that died first. So what can be done to avoid this in the future?
The main thing I'd look at is why we feel the cattle need to be as fat as they are to finish. Anyone who actually eats the beef they finish knows that the last level of extreme finishing doesn't do much for the actual meat quality. As long as that animal has had a base level of consistent gains throughout it's life (2.5-3 lbs/day), it's going to have maximized intramuscular marbling. Genetics and stress levels probably play the biggest part in meat tenderness. The only reason feedlots are told to get animals this fat is because packers want to take that trim and cut it with meat from boner cows to add value.
So feedlots are now in a place where they are taking huge losses because they have been feeding in such a way that costs them more money (those final gains can be some of the most expensive), massively multiplies their risk of death loss, and doesn't give the consumer any better product.
It sounds like feedlots now have more leverage than ever, so I think it's time we break out of the lie that we need these jiggly mass monsters (that are one hot day away from death) to have good beef. Once again, the only people benefiting from this model are the packers. I know that any change in this industry scares the hell out of people, but we need to realize that every time we have one of these events, we've given vegans that much more ammo, and in this case it's pretty hard to argue otherwise. | |
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Is there anything to learn from these heat losses?
