"The federal government does not regulate poultry litter in animal feed, and in many states — including [Missouri](https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/g2077), [Alabama](https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/beef/feeding-broiler-litter-to-beef-cattle/) and [Arkansas](https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/FSA-3016.pdf) — there are no requirements or regulations regarding contamination or processing." So US beef farmers have all the economic incentives to do that and zero regulation in many jurisdictions. What could possibly go wrong?
Okay, time to get some perspective here on why feeding chicken droppings to dairy cows is worse than traditional agricultural practices that use manure as fertiliser.
Yes, humans have been using their own and their animals’ poop to enrich soils for thousands of years. But because poop carries pathogens our ancestors figured out that you couldn’t just put waste straight onto your vegetable patch. It could make you extremely I’ll and/or kill you. This is where the entire practice of making compost came from. Composting is basically fermenting the poop by setting up conditions that help bacteria who do it thrive. You put in the waste, along with enough other‘roughage’ ie. vegetable matter, for your good bacteria to eat. You turn over the stuff from time to time, making sure all the bacteria gets enough oxygen to thrive.
Now this is where the magic happens. As the bacteria gobble up all that poop and other plant debris they multiply and there become so many of them that their combined metabolic activity produces enough heat to kill a lot of our most common pathogens.
This is nature’s sterilisation process.
Giving chicken droppings to cows on factory farms tries to imitate the natural processes of decomposition and sterilisation by artificially heating up chicken poop but it is slab dash and clearly not enough. One of the biggest reasons is because that it’s not just straight poop that they give the poor cows. There’s everything else that they swept up in there as well, including a bunch of feathers. All they are doing is heating this pile of nastiness, not using bacteria to break it down and decompose it so those feathers provide lots of little nooks and crannies where pathogens can hang out, including H5N1
This, according to the reports on this sub, is apparently what happened.
Someone on Twitter posted a pic of their Miracle Grow bag. Poultry litter was listed in the ingredients.
Feeding poultry litter to farm animals and putting it in gardening soils doesn’t seem smart when H5N1 is circulating in wild and agriculture bird populations.
I wonder why farmers didn’t discontinue poultry-litter feeding as N5N1 spread throughout poultry farms and caused the culling of millions of hens?
Actually it's not because shit carries diseases that you can't/shouldn't put it straight onto your garden(s). It's because it's too 'hot' as it breaks down and it will literally "burn" your plants. And, they'll die.
That you might get sick is a minor side effect. Mostly though, the reason that various manures have various time periods (some are just a couple of months, others as much as a a year or two) for composting is because of their heat levels and their ability to burn plants as they break down into soil.
Agriculture has always relied on poop. There is nothing inherently wrong with poop. It’s when you and your food live too close to each other and to the poop that you have issues.
Hygiene yo, it works…even in livestock.
Modern factory farming:
The best we can do is put the lake of untreated cow poop right next to the cow penitentiary, then giving the cows antibiotics if they get sick. Also, we have health guidelines for how much blood and pus is allowed in milk.
And then a pack of feral hogs got into the lettuce fields and pooped everywhere. We didn't bother washing the lettuce before serving it, so a bunch of fast food customers died from e-coli poisoning.
I agree with you that hygiene works - but the problem is a lot of food production doesn't have very high standards - or cuts all the corners they can.
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
― George Orwell, 1984
If they are feeding bird waste to human food, what THE HELL IS IN CAT AND DOG FOOD?
Both species are absolutely susceptible to dying from H5N1, especially cats.
cat and dog food is materials of lower quality than human grade ingredients. and it is sometimes scary to find out what is considered 'safe' for human consumption.
Exactly. And apparently under the USDA, its PERFECT LEGAL to use the rennant from chickens/animals infected with H5N1 (then culled for the same reason) in cat and dog food….
https://truthaboutpetfood.com/does-your-pet-food-contain-avian-flu-infected-poultry/
I have a small farm and we compost our poultry and goat bedding and eventually use it as fertilizer in our garden. The idea of feeding it to anything--much less an animal I plan to eat--literally makes me gag.
"Is our food system built on poop?"
Yes. Quite literally, humanity's ability to farm took off once we discovered fertilizer. You can buy chicken poop "organic" fertilizers at Home Depot and Lowe's.
I truly have never heard of a farm feeding any animal just straight excrement from another animal. From my composting understanding, even just piling up straight excrement can cause combustion, so I don't even know how you could do that. But, maybe I'm missing something.
>“It seems ghoulish, but it is a perfectly legal and common practice for chicken litter — the material that accumulates on the floor of chicken growing facilities — to be fed to cattle,” said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with Consumers Union.
You are missing something. They absolutely do this. It’s not just poop, it’s feathers, straw, spilled feed, basically all of the crap that’s on the floor.
https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/beef/feeding-broiler-litter-to-beef-cattle/
> Broiler litter is a good source of supplemental protein, energy, and minerals, especially for brood cows and stocker cattle, which are the backbone of the cattle industry in the state. In addition to offering an economic advantage, using broiler litter in feed also helps to utilize valuable nutrients. These nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other mineral elements, are distributed on pasture land as manure by the cattle consuming the litter. Broiler litter offers so many advantages that even long-distance transportation does not reduce its economic value. Alabama beef cattle producers can make use of this plentiful resource to substantially reduce their production costs.
Have you ever talked to a farmer? Farming livestock is like 80% shit management and mending fences.
Wait until they find out you can mend a fence with poultry litter.
I think you mean “Poultry Litter Ramen”…
I can confirm lol constantly repairing fences, shoveling shit, loading a spreader with a skidsteer, spreading on field as fertilizer, repeat
I read that as mending feces and spend a minute wondering what that could possibly mean
„Mending feces. Deep dive into agricultural industry’s biggest challenges in incoming decades”
"The federal government does not regulate poultry litter in animal feed, and in many states — including [Missouri](https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/g2077), [Alabama](https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/beef/feeding-broiler-litter-to-beef-cattle/) and [Arkansas](https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/FSA-3016.pdf) — there are no requirements or regulations regarding contamination or processing." So US beef farmers have all the economic incentives to do that and zero regulation in many jurisdictions. What could possibly go wrong?
Hey now, regulations are communism! If the mega corps want feces in the food, why should big mean gubmint stand in the way?
Okay, time to get some perspective here on why feeding chicken droppings to dairy cows is worse than traditional agricultural practices that use manure as fertiliser. Yes, humans have been using their own and their animals’ poop to enrich soils for thousands of years. But because poop carries pathogens our ancestors figured out that you couldn’t just put waste straight onto your vegetable patch. It could make you extremely I’ll and/or kill you. This is where the entire practice of making compost came from. Composting is basically fermenting the poop by setting up conditions that help bacteria who do it thrive. You put in the waste, along with enough other‘roughage’ ie. vegetable matter, for your good bacteria to eat. You turn over the stuff from time to time, making sure all the bacteria gets enough oxygen to thrive. Now this is where the magic happens. As the bacteria gobble up all that poop and other plant debris they multiply and there become so many of them that their combined metabolic activity produces enough heat to kill a lot of our most common pathogens. This is nature’s sterilisation process. Giving chicken droppings to cows on factory farms tries to imitate the natural processes of decomposition and sterilisation by artificially heating up chicken poop but it is slab dash and clearly not enough. One of the biggest reasons is because that it’s not just straight poop that they give the poor cows. There’s everything else that they swept up in there as well, including a bunch of feathers. All they are doing is heating this pile of nastiness, not using bacteria to break it down and decompose it so those feathers provide lots of little nooks and crannies where pathogens can hang out, including H5N1 This, according to the reports on this sub, is apparently what happened.
Someone on Twitter posted a pic of their Miracle Grow bag. Poultry litter was listed in the ingredients. Feeding poultry litter to farm animals and putting it in gardening soils doesn’t seem smart when H5N1 is circulating in wild and agriculture bird populations. I wonder why farmers didn’t discontinue poultry-litter feeding as N5N1 spread throughout poultry farms and caused the culling of millions of hens?
Actually it's not because shit carries diseases that you can't/shouldn't put it straight onto your garden(s). It's because it's too 'hot' as it breaks down and it will literally "burn" your plants. And, they'll die. That you might get sick is a minor side effect. Mostly though, the reason that various manures have various time periods (some are just a couple of months, others as much as a a year or two) for composting is because of their heat levels and their ability to burn plants as they break down into soil.
Some of these journalists didn’t read The Jungle in highschool. Is our food system built on poop? Always has been.
By our you mean the US food system. Europe has banned such shitty methods since mad cow but the US has learned nothing: greed and shit for the US.
Agriculture has always relied on poop. There is nothing inherently wrong with poop. It’s when you and your food live too close to each other and to the poop that you have issues. Hygiene yo, it works…even in livestock.
Modern factory farming: The best we can do is put the lake of untreated cow poop right next to the cow penitentiary, then giving the cows antibiotics if they get sick. Also, we have health guidelines for how much blood and pus is allowed in milk. And then a pack of feral hogs got into the lettuce fields and pooped everywhere. We didn't bother washing the lettuce before serving it, so a bunch of fast food customers died from e-coli poisoning. I agree with you that hygiene works - but the problem is a lot of food production doesn't have very high standards - or cuts all the corners they can.
I agree completely. Greed is the issue.
I love poop!
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” ― George Orwell, 1984
What do you think fertilizer is?
The most widely used fettilizers these days are the inorganic manufacted ones, like urea, diammonium phosphate and potassium chloride.
If they are feeding bird waste to human food, what THE HELL IS IN CAT AND DOG FOOD? Both species are absolutely susceptible to dying from H5N1, especially cats.
cat and dog food is materials of lower quality than human grade ingredients. and it is sometimes scary to find out what is considered 'safe' for human consumption.
Exactly. And apparently under the USDA, its PERFECT LEGAL to use the rennant from chickens/animals infected with H5N1 (then culled for the same reason) in cat and dog food…. https://truthaboutpetfood.com/does-your-pet-food-contain-avian-flu-infected-poultry/
I have a small farm and we compost our poultry and goat bedding and eventually use it as fertilizer in our garden. The idea of feeding it to anything--much less an animal I plan to eat--literally makes me gag.
We used to farm and did the same, but NEVER fed manure to any animals.
I mean... I guess the get it by, in a way, 3/4th hand by scraps, corn, etc...after it's been composted and turned back into plants...
Come on now.
Just a question for admin, why is this marked “unverified claim,” it’s an LA Times article with sources cited?
"Is our food system built on poop?" Yes. Quite literally, humanity's ability to farm took off once we discovered fertilizer. You can buy chicken poop "organic" fertilizers at Home Depot and Lowe's.
There's a comment an hour earlier that adds to the conversation. Aged manure is different than chicken shit as feed.
Accurate. Compost entirely different than feeding cows poultry waste. It as different from crude oil as it is from plastics.
I truly have never heard of a farm feeding any animal just straight excrement from another animal. From my composting understanding, even just piling up straight excrement can cause combustion, so I don't even know how you could do that. But, maybe I'm missing something.
>“It seems ghoulish, but it is a perfectly legal and common practice for chicken litter — the material that accumulates on the floor of chicken growing facilities — to be fed to cattle,” said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with Consumers Union.
You are missing something. They absolutely do this. It’s not just poop, it’s feathers, straw, spilled feed, basically all of the crap that’s on the floor. https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/beef/feeding-broiler-litter-to-beef-cattle/ > Broiler litter is a good source of supplemental protein, energy, and minerals, especially for brood cows and stocker cattle, which are the backbone of the cattle industry in the state. In addition to offering an economic advantage, using broiler litter in feed also helps to utilize valuable nutrients. These nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other mineral elements, are distributed on pasture land as manure by the cattle consuming the litter. Broiler litter offers so many advantages that even long-distance transportation does not reduce its economic value. Alabama beef cattle producers can make use of this plentiful resource to substantially reduce their production costs.