Animal By-Products in Feed

[Maurisa Payne <maurisap@erols.com>]

Newsweek's cover story this week regards mad cow disease and animal
by-products in feed.  It is a fascinating, informative and scarey read
if you can stomach it.  Also there is a new book on the shelves entitled
Fast Food Nation which delves into the nasty things our McDonald's fries
and burgers (and other well known fast food chains) are cooked in,
flavored with, and where they come from.  It also states that euthanized
cats and dogs from shelters are bought by feed companies and ground up
into animal feeds (yes, horses too).  It further states that most
McDonald's burgers (and school lunch burgers) come from "dried up old
dairy cattle who are heavily saturated with antibiotics."

The Washington Post had an article about this book in the food section
last week and I spent three hours at Borders over the weekend skimming
it.  Nasty stuff!  That, coupled with the Newsweek article, made me RUN
(yes, I'm yelling!) to the barn to check the labels on my horse feed.
Phew - no animal by-products!  But what am I going to feed by cats and
dogs now?

Seriously folks, if you read either of these two things, your outlook on
what we feed our animals and ourselves will change.  It's an alarming
situation and I urge each of you to check your horse feed products - and
the human food you might keep in your freezer or pantry.  If your feed
contains animal by-products, contact your supplier and manufacturer and
insist that you will switch to another feed if this animal trash isn't
removed.  As a group we can all make a difference in what we feed and
what we eat.

And - no - I'm not a vegetarian - yet!!

Maurisa and "Mr. Perfect" (aka, Sceptre the much beloved spoiled Arab)