From a sheep List:

<< This is a copy of an email I sent today, to Agro Pacific Industries who manufacture the sheep ration I have been using.

Dear Sirs, I buy all my feed from Eileen Stevens Waimea Feed Supply. She stocks a full range of Pro Form Feeds.

I have been a satisfied user of the Rabbit Pellet, several of the horse feeds and 14% Sheep Tex for several years. Your quality control is consistently good.

I am writing to tell you why I will no longer be buying Sheep Tex, even though the sheep love it and the price is right. Number 6 on the list of ingredients on the label, animal fat. I don't know about your sheep but mine are herbivores.

After all the fuss in Europe with BSE, attributed to feeding dairy cows a ration containing animal fats & animal by-products, I can not understand why anybody would still manufacture a feed using animal fat or meat and bone meal.

New scrapie control regulations for interstate shipment of sheep requiring certification and monitoring of the flock, the fuss up in Vermont right now, USDA as jumpy as a cat on a porch full of rocking chairs. I quote from one of the Internet Sheep Lists, "You shouldn't feed ground up animals to grass-eaters. If you do, you're an idiot." This sentiment makes good sense to me.

So, I pull off the tag next time I am in the feed room to check it out. What a nasty surprise! Even worse the protein block I bought to steam up my ewes lists animal fat second! Pulled that out right away.

What we have here is an unhappy shepherd and even unhappier sheep. What are you going to do about it? I am going to check my bags of horse feed tomorrow. Why are you not using plant fats, corn oil, cotton seed oil, there are so many to choose from? If it is a matter of price, I think you are making a big mistake. I want you to know that I really, really like your product, if I didn't I wouldn't bother writing to express my concern! Reluctantly, I will not be buying any more until animal fat disappears from the ingredients.

Sincerely [I've left her name off]

I would be interested to hear from other list members if any of you use a premixed feed and if so, what you found when you checked the label. I think the only way we can convince the feed companies to stop using animal fats is with the combined power of our wallets. >>

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), July 25, 2000

Answers

Rogo:

If you get an answer I suspect it will be along these lines: The use of animal fat in feed rations is approved by the USDA. It is a very cheap protein additive compared to the other sources you listed, so, if we switched, we would have to raise our prices in a very competitive market.

There is a huge amount of animal fat which comes out of slaughter houses. You might tell your wife it is extremely likely animal fat is in her lipstick. Somewhere I have an article on the many uses of animal fat in our everyday lives. Will look for it.

How BSE got started is there isn't much of a market for mutton even in England. What to do with the surplus slaughter sheep? Well, we'll grind up the entire carcass and use it in animal feed. They knew about scrappies, but at that time it was not believed spongiform encephalopathy could be transferred between species. Wrong! Cattle started coming down with it and it was traced back to scrappies in the feed. Then humans began coming down with it and it was traced back to their all having eaten beef.

I have a tape of a NOVA program titled "The Brain Eaters." In it they say scrappies and BSE are contained only in the brain and spinal cord. The other animal parts are OK. It is thought how it got into beef is during the processing and inspection bits and pieces of the spinal cord of BSE affected cows got into the processed meat while the spine was sawed in half. While England was trying to eliminate BSE, sales of beef were still permitted, but only cuts which contained no bones. They have since approved all cuts.

Is cooked bone meal OK. Don't know. However the program did say BSE can still be detected in the ashes of carcasses which have been cremated.

An alternative is to have your own feed mix made up by a feed mill. A book I highly recommend is Feeds and Feeding by F.B. Morrison. It should be available through the used book sellers which advertise in Countryside. It contains a number of different combinations for feed for 14, 16, 18, 20 and 24 percent protein, none of which contain animal by-products, except fish meal. Loose salt and minerals can be included at the same time. For example, here is one 14% mix they give as acceptable for ewes for one ton of feed: ground barley - 1090 pounds, ground oats - 600, wheat bran - 200, Soybean oil meal or cottonseed meal - 90 and salt 20. You can get prices of various ingredients from the feed mill and then compare to what you are paying now. Probably higher, but you then know exactly what is in your feed.

-- Ken Scharabok (scharabo@aol.com), July 25, 2000.

I recently did a lot of research on a custom mix for my goats. They were using animal protein in the feed I bought for them pre made. I don't understand how these folks at the feed companies think they should be feeding meat to herbivores.....possibly they are the same folks that think tin waste is the thing to put in the public water suppies.

Perhaps if everyone utilizes the feed mixing mills in their areas and don't use any of the animal by products the larger manufacturers will get the idea that the public can read and reason.

-- Doreen (livinginskin@yahoo.com), July 25, 2000.

Doreen:

What about feeding animal by-products, such as pulverized feathers and processed baby male chicks back to chickens? They aren't herbivores.

-- Ken Scharabok (scharabo@aol.com), July 25, 2000.

We have stopped feeding animal by products and fats for some time now. The real problem is the feed tags themselves. They have to state animal by products, fats or protein, but they can not state which one it is. Calf Manna, Headstart and Purina's Animax, the three that we sent in all contained whey as the Animal Protein on the tag. There was no fish or feather meal in it. Whey is a totally acceptable animal protein for us to use, problem is it is illegal for them to state whey on the feed tag! The feeding of ruminents, animal by products like fish and feather meal is a metobloic problem, they ingest the product, it goes into their rumen and actually sits in a slurry and rots, it is totally unassimilated in the rumen, (and since it is not digested as protein you are wasting your money also) causing rumen acidossis, which mimicks milk fever, ketosis and bloat. We have been feeding our custom mix for about 8 years now, though I will admit I know a hell of alot more than I did when I started 14 years ago, the overall health of my heard is incredible when you put them up against those who are using goat pellets, which even though you know have animal by products in them, they are so cheap you simply can't get folks to understand the problems they are having are nutritional in nature. Just like a broken septic tank, kill the bugs in the rumen and you have a sick goat. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), July 25, 2000.

Years ago a had a pet hair sheep that was like a dog. She wore Pampers when we went to town into all the stores. She laid down with her head in my lap in the truck. Our property taxes go down to almost nothing if we have crops/critters to sell. Years ago I raised mules out of my Mammoth jack and large broodmare band. He also bred outside mares. But now I've cut back to just my hobby critters. I've been thinking about starting a flock of these hair sheep due to their ease....no tail docking, no shearing, disease resistant, etc.

I joined a hair sheep List to learn about the breed, and the post about the added animal ingredients is from that List. It's not MY post. Some of the folks are big time sheep herders, doing business internationally. Discussions are deep, and sometimes beyond me, due to my being new at this. Government issues are about wool sheep and rarely talk about the hair sheep. Presently, there's discussion about the fact that British scientists have announced plans to breed sheep that are resistant to both scrapie and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and there's curiosity as to which breeds they'll use. From what the List has said, Scrapie has yet to show up in the hair sheep. So I keep learning.

The critters I do have graze Coastal grass 24/7, so I don't buy much feed, just for the chickens. Altho they free range, I keep their hoppers full. I keep chickens for insect control; the eggs are a bonus.

I guess I should admit that I'm not a homesteader. Someone mentioned 'Countryside' magazine on one of my Lists. Altho this List wasn't mentioned, I went looking on the web and wound up here. You folks have good ideas that can be incorporated by the rest of us, so I stayed. Hope you don't mind!

More and more folks are home schooling due to their kids not getting an education in the government schools. More and more folks are turning to growing their own meat, fruits and veggies ~ even if they're not homesteaders ~ due to what is being allowed in our foods. They take away our pesticides, but buy food from countries that use DDT. What a country!

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), July 25, 2000.

Say Rogo, I don't think that you have to have a magazine subscription to be a member of the group the magazine caters to. The more people who try to provide better for their families by working within the natural systems the better! Carrying a banner wit a name on it makes it no more or less a statement.

Ken, I might just be old fashioned, but I don't think it's a good idea to feed the same species to the little ones of that species. Except for fish, I can't think of any species that has shown a benefit from the practice. Can you?

-- Doreen (livinginskin@yahoo.com), July 25, 2000.

Ken, I would like to say that when I made my first post on here I was specifically talking about feeding herbivores meat by products. I know you know I am a vegetarian, but I do not believe that we should only feed grain to dogs and cats and things like that. I believe creatures should eat as God designed them to eat. Man has the choice of eating meat or not and I choose not to because I feel better when I don't. I don't think everyone has to be a vegetarian like me and the world will be a better place. I just don't want you to think I am against meat per se, I am against meat industry, though. Thanks for giving me the chance to clarify that.

-- Doreen (livinginskin@yahoo.com), July 25, 2000.

Doreen, I'm just the opposite of you; I don't feel good if I don't eat meat. I'm a porkaholic! But then, I rarely eat fruits/veggies. I've had personal friends who are physicians tell me that I'm proof we're all different. I haven't had a cold/flu in 35 years, and I'm full of energy, so it works for me.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), July 25, 2000.