From my own experience with feed lots I agree to what is said, the animals are mostly too young and thus react with more stress than older ones.
It is a most stressful experience for these calves to be taken away from their mothers anyway (as e.g. in dairy industry), then in addition they are removed from the area with its own energy and ion levels, put on trucks (another most stressful situation) and driven many miles (often without water and feed and cramped), then they suddenly arrive at a totally unknown environment with hundreds or thousands of animals they do not know - what does one expect - it must has negative impact on the animals. They arrive at the feed lot, they dont eat or drink, loose additional weight very quickly and their immune system is further weakened. Further I say because of the really totally unnecessary application of the so called growth hormones which are really nothing else but antibiotics (luckily the EU has put a stop to this). Why do I say this? Just imagine your mother would have given you antibiotics from just after you were born - you would have had not chance go build up an own immune system thus you would be weak all your life, needing more medication than someone who has grown up naturally. Again I must point to the technology and natural products (which are registered with OMRI, EU etc) I use for years and amongst them is a feed additive that prevents the need for antibiotics and most of the medication. One needs very small amounts e.g. 3 g per grown unit per day at the most or what also works are 70 g per ton of feed. One can also give the cow a day before calving one time 30 g and the calving is easy and the mother cow is up and about directly afterwards. Should a calve be dehydrated/ diarrhea then you just give it one time 10 g, the next day the animal has fully recovered in 9 out of 10 cases.
Now what I have done to avoid the stress is that I created the same atmosphere at the place where animals come from, on the trucks and then in the feed lot. That eliminated totally the stress factor. Sounds impossible? No its easy. I mix a little of one of the products I use and of course in the meantime market and spray it on and around the animals at their home place, then I spray the trucks inside where they will be loaded to and then I spray the area where they will be offloaded - no problem whatsoever.
You want to know more? Contact me. |
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