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Feeding Broiler Litter to Beef Cattle
Not sure where to put this question, but I am sure it will find its place here.
Feeding chicken litter as a winter mix to cattle has been occuring for many years. Many of the studies never take into account the potenticial of H5N1 crossing into cattle and producing a deadly BVP to cattle and consumers.
So if h5n1 either low or high path is consumed by cattle and that beef enters slaughter houses and the product then reaches consumers just like the last peanut scare how would people react if they new the beef they are feeding to their families may lower their resistance to a future avian pandemic.
Feeding Broiler Litter to Beef Cattle
ANR-0557 Revised May 2000. Darrell Rankins, Extension Specialist, Associate Professor, Animal and Dairy Sciences, Auburn University. Originally prepared by B.G. Ruffin and Norwood J. Van Dyke, former Extension Animal Scientists, and T.A. McCaskey, Professor, Animal and Dairy Sciences, Auburn University.
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attle and other ruminants have a unique digestive system that allows them to use waste and other types of by-products as sources of dietary nutrients. The cattle-feeding industry has been built largely on the use of by-products and other materials that can be digested only by ruminants. One byproduct that can be used as a cattle feed is broiler litter.
The broiler chicken industry has long considered broiler litter a problem by-product. It has been used mainly as a fertilizer. However, fertilizer does not make the most efficient use of broiler litter. In terms of the cost of replacing the nutrients it provides with nutrients from other sources, broiler litter is worth four times more as a cattle feed ingredient than as fertilizer. Litter is a good source of 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 conserve plant nutrients. These nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other mineral elements, are distributed on pasture land as manure by the cattle consuming the litter. Under present conditions, 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.
Most beef producers take into account the public perception of beef when they are considering using waste materials as feed. There is an apparent reluctance on the part of the public, as well as of some beef producers, to accept broiler litter as a cattle feed. However, the public readily accepts organically grown vegetables grown on composted broiler litter. The process by which a plant assimilates food into its tissues is much less complicated than the process by which a cow does the same thing; a cow?s food is broken down and processed much more completely. And, in fact, a cow must be off broiler litter for 15 days before it can be slaughtered for beef, while a mushroom can go directly from its bed of manure to the grocery store.
It is important that the beef industry avoid a controversy over the healthfulness of beef. Broiler litter has been used as feed for several years in all areas of the country without any recorded harmful effects on humans who have consumed the products of these animals. In addition, in Alabama, litter is most commonly fed to brood cows and stocker cattle that are not usually marketed as slaughter beef. Very little if any litter is in the diets of finished cattle fed for slaughter (although, allowing a 15-day withdrawal period from feeding litter before slaughter, such a diet would be considered safe). So, the possibility of any human health hazard, either real or imagined, is remote.
Feeding chicken litter as a winter mix to cattle has been occuring for many years. Many of the studies never take into account the potenticial of H5N1 crossing into cattle and producing a deadly BVP to cattle and consumers.
So if h5n1 either low or high path is consumed by cattle and that beef enters slaughter houses and the product then reaches consumers just like the last peanut scare how would people react if they new the beef they are feeding to their families may lower their resistance to a future avian pandemic. 
Feeding Broiler Litter to Beef Cattle
ANR-0557 Revised May 2000. Darrell Rankins, Extension Specialist, Associate Professor, Animal and Dairy Sciences, Auburn University. Originally prepared by B.G. Ruffin and Norwood J. Van Dyke, former Extension Animal Scientists, and T.A. McCaskey, Professor, Animal and Dairy Sciences, Auburn University.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
attle and other ruminants have a unique digestive system that allows them to use waste and other types of by-products as sources of dietary nutrients. The cattle-feeding industry has been built largely on the use of by-products and other materials that can be digested only by ruminants. One byproduct that can be used as a cattle feed is broiler litter.
The broiler chicken industry has long considered broiler litter a problem by-product. It has been used mainly as a fertilizer. However, fertilizer does not make the most efficient use of broiler litter. In terms of the cost of replacing the nutrients it provides with nutrients from other sources, broiler litter is worth four times more as a cattle feed ingredient than as fertilizer. Litter is a good source of 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 conserve plant nutrients. These nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other mineral elements, are distributed on pasture land as manure by the cattle consuming the litter. Under present conditions, 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.
Most beef producers take into account the public perception of beef when they are considering using waste materials as feed. There is an apparent reluctance on the part of the public, as well as of some beef producers, to accept broiler litter as a cattle feed. However, the public readily accepts organically grown vegetables grown on composted broiler litter. The process by which a plant assimilates food into its tissues is much less complicated than the process by which a cow does the same thing; a cow?s food is broken down and processed much more completely. And, in fact, a cow must be off broiler litter for 15 days before it can be slaughtered for beef, while a mushroom can go directly from its bed of manure to the grocery store.
It is important that the beef industry avoid a controversy over the healthfulness of beef. Broiler litter has been used as feed for several years in all areas of the country without any recorded harmful effects on humans who have consumed the products of these animals. In addition, in Alabama, litter is most commonly fed to brood cows and stocker cattle that are not usually marketed as slaughter beef. Very little if any litter is in the diets of finished cattle fed for slaughter (although, allowing a 15-day withdrawal period from feeding litter before slaughter, such a diet would be considered safe). So, the possibility of any human health hazard, either real or imagined, is remote.
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