U.S. Farmers feed their cattle Red Skittles

[Wallingford]

Originally Posted by alexora

I wonder if any of the cows who are fed on skittles give out fruit flavoured milk...?

I thought we were talking beef cows. Now my head hurts, maybe from all the sugar in the hamburgers.

[alexora]

Originally Posted by Wallingford

I thought we were talking beef cows.

I hadn't read that in any of the posts here.

Maybe in America they don't let their dairy cows ruminate in the fields to the same extent they do in Europe...

[Grumble]

Originally Posted by uglybob

This is just one of the many reasons I eat grass fed local farm beef.

Yeah, grass fed is awesome. Unfortunately grass fed dairy is hard to come by where I live. I'd have to cross the border to Seattle to get it most of the year. Great stuff like Kerrygold isn't allowed to be imported but we do get grassfed beef. The stuff we get from Austrailia and New Zealand is very good and surprisingly affordable.

Originally Posted by alexora

Maybe in America they don't let their dairy cows ruminate in the fields to the same extent they do in Europe...

Generally no. You guys have a definite advantage when it comes to getting top notch dairy. My understanding that feeding the garbage food, which I have heard can include candybars too, is mainly for raising the animals weight and not used for dairy production.

[Wallingford]

Originally Posted by Grumble

Yeah, grass fed is awesome. Unfortunately grass fed dairy is hard to come by where I live. I'd have to cross the border to Seattle to get it most of the year. Great stuff like Kerrygold isn't allowed to be imported but we do get grassfed beef. The stuff we get from Austrailia and New Zealand is very good and surprisingly affordable.

My understanding that feeding the garbage food, which I have heard can include candybars too, is mainly for raising the animals weight and not used for dairy production.

And why would anyone need to add weight to a dairy cow? I love the internet. Several years ago someone wanted to argue that grits are the same size as rice. Now people are talking about cows; and I'm not sure if they ever met one.

[Grumble]

Originally Posted by Wallingford

And why would anyone need to add weight to a dairy cow?

I thought I was being clear that they are adding the crap to the feed of animals being sold for meat, not their milk. Sorry for any confusion.

Also, I have worked on a farm with cows before. Branding and steering calves, chasing the fuckers around when they got out and all that stuff.

[alexora]

Originally Posted by Grumble

I have worked on a farm with cows before. Branding and steering calves, chasing the fuckers around when they got out and all that stuff.

Wow! You should change you name again, this time to Cowboy!

[Grumble]

Originally Posted by alexora

Wow! You should change you name again, this time to Cowboy!

I wouldn't go that far though I would like to have a homestead of my own some day.

[Reclaimedepb]

Originally Posted by iLikeBigButtz

You couldn't pay me to eat meat reared in the US; red skittles is just the tip of the iceberg.

Well, you don't like anything that gets reared, so no surprise there!


Since it is Wisconsin, America's Dairy State (a title that actually belongs to California if we are talking milk... we still rule in cheese) the cows were almost certainly dairy cows. Probably also part of industrial farms, where they don't move from their tiny pens except to be milked twice a day. You see very few family sized farms with cattle enough to need huge amounts of feed.

Beef cattle are definitely a more western and southwestern thing, and are usually given a very large range.

[Wallingford]

Originally Posted by gtzaskar

Since it is Wisconsin, the cows were almost certainly dairy cows.

I feel silly.


In my defense, after my initial knee jerk "stoner" response, I did say I was not fully awake when I made that one, so I must have overlooked the Wisconsin angle, oh a dozen times.

[Reclaimedepb]

Originally Posted by Wallingford

...I must have overlooked the Wisconsin angle, oh a dozen times.

Hey no worries man.

I did read once that dairy cattle that no longer produce are slaughtered and the meat goes to places such as McDonalds and the like. I have no idea how true that is. Sounded like something to scare people off fast food, but it would be a waste of meat to just get rid of all that protein, even though it sounds unappealing.