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Livestock Health: It's Getting Serious

© Robin Blackburn Jerkins

It was bad enough when mad cow disease reared its ugly head again a few months ago. Now, there are outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in Europe and other parts of the world, and people are afraid that U.S. livestock will not be immune forever.

I could lecture on how feeding cattle other cattle was bound to create some sort of hideous problem somewhere down the line, or I could just turn vegetarian and spend my life ingesting weed-killing chemicals and pesticides instead of growth hormones and vaccinations. But I am so concerned about animal health, I'm going to spend this article clueing you in to some recent news articles.

MSNBC.com has several articles related to the recent livestock disease outbreaks. A March 13 article on the foot and mouth outbreak in England can be found at www.msnbc.com/news/544047. A March 12 article on the concerns American ranchers and animal health professionals have about disease outbreaks in the U.S. is at www.msnbc.com/news/542996.

A more upbeat article about how the meat industry is surviving in spite of the disease outbreaks can be found at CNN.com www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH. Another recent CNN.com piece on how the recent livestock diseases might have started in the U.K. is at www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD.

I have also added some more links to the Feed/Nutrition section of links. They might not have the answer to mad cow disease or foot and mouth disease, but they can help you keep your animals in general good health.

Until next time, keep your own foot out of your own mouth and hope all the bad ranching news will be over with soon.

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