So, About Those Eggs...

DeCoster (4.00 / 2)

Kirby said:

Now these farms are-or factories, really, are associated with a company called DeCoster.

Goodman said:

Both the factory farms that are affected in this recall are linked to a businessman named Austin DeCoster...

I looked at Hillandale Farms when that recall was announced, but could not find evidence of DeCoster ownership participation, so what's the relationship? According to a Fox News blogger,

Wright County is operated by Peter DeCoster, the son of egg giant Jack DeCoster. Hillandale gets its feed and chickens supplied by a DeCoster operation, Quality Egg.

Wright County also gets its eggs and chickens from Quality Egg.

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by: count @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 10:48:10 AM UTC

Hamburg (4.00 / 3)

Commissioner Hamburg is deluded if she thinks the DeCoster operations can be "cleaned up." They're rotten to the core - extirpate them, roots and branches.

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by: count @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 10:51:35 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

DeCoster and BP (4.00 / 2)

This egg situation reminds me a lot of BP. When a company has a long record of aggressive violations of regulations and good practices, someone needs to say "At long last, enough is enough!" Allowing them to continue in business, hoping they will someday do right, is insane.

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by: count @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 10:58:24 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

true..but no one has the balls (4.00 / 3)

to do so. It's a really sad thing to say but fines aren't doing anything for companies like this because they see the fines as part of doing business.  

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by: LeeN @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 12:30:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

stacked cages (4.00 / 1)

"Chicken feed" is chicken excrement in factory buildings with stacked cages. Chickens in lower tiers eat the poop from upper tiers, enabling calories to be extracted to the maximum possible extent. Is this practice regulated at all, either at the federal or state level? I have seen photographs of factory buildings that do not use stacked caging, but I don't know if the practice is more prevalent in one sector than another (layers vs. broilers) or varies by state or company.

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by: count @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 11:03:46 AM UTC

There are no stacked cages in broiler houses (4.00 / 3)

broilers are raised on the ground in large barns. Some barns have sides that can be raised for cooling and air circulation, others have fixed walls and substantial air handling systems. All broiler barns are heated and equiped with central air conditioning.

Where did you get this informaiton?

"Chicken feed" is chicken excrement in factory buildings with stacked cages. Chickens in lower tiers eat the poop from upper tiers, enabling calories to be extracted to the maximum possible extent.

In some asian countries, where integrated livestock/poultry/aquaculture operations exist, manure from one animal is recycled through another. To my knowleage this is not practiced in this country.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 14:27:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It was practiced (4.00 / 1)

in the U.S. several years ago, according to my personal knowledge of hog growers. I don't have personal knowledge if it is practiced in U.S. hog farming today.

If stacked caging is practiced in layer barns (and I do not have personal knowledge that it is), how could manure "recyling" not be concomitant?

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by: count @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 14:51:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That may have been a practice with hog growers in the USA (4.00 / 2)

but you said that it was practiced in the poultry industry. To my knowleage, in cage layer facilities, the manure from the upper tier of cages is not fed to the birds below them. Poultry manure may well incorporated into processed layer rations in these facilities, especially in a system that is milling its own feeds. All the poultry, fowl and game bird feed that I can find at the feed stores says 'no animal by products' and on the ingredients lists, while you will find things like dried distillers grains, wheat middlings, etc. I have yet to buy a feed that lists things like feather meal or any other animal by product.

Cage layer facilities would have to have some kind of manure handling systems below each tier of cages. Having had birds roost under flock mates, I would say that if the upper tier was able to poop directly into the cage below them, the bottom birds would probably be dead within a few months.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 17:01:41 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You are correct (4.00 / 1)

My extension to the poultry industry was my assumption.

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by: count @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 17:06:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I've read that chicken litter (4.00 / 2)

is fed to cattle. That would included the chicken excrement.

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 16:43:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Chicken litter is still (to my knowleage) an approved feed additive (4.00 / 2)

for animals like cattle, and even poultry. But what Count had said was that the manure from one poultry cage was allowed to move down into the cage(s) below it in a facility to be used as food for the birds in the lower cage(s).  

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 17:03:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Organic egg -- research? (4.00 / 3)

Read a blog post today from a doctor that recommended cooking eggs thoroughly and then in the next sentence pooh-poohed organic eggs saying "there's no proof that they are any safer."

Well, I suppose. But I mean c'mon, my free-range farmers' chickens aren't stuck eating each others' poop.

Are there any "good studies" to rebut this type of nonsense? I'd like to set this doctor straight but I need facts! (Even though she just posts her opinions).

-Jonathan

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by: JPStreeter @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 20:59:38 PM UTC

Ummm, (4.00 / 3)

But I mean c'mon, my free-range farmers' chickens aren't stuck eating each others' poop.

Free range chickens may not be 'stuck' eating each others' poop, they have free choice, and quite often they choose to go through other animals' poo, including chicken poo....

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 21:07:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

my understanding is that (4.00 / 2)

healthy chickens will go after insect larvae in feces, this being part of how they fill their ecological niche.

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 01:01:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Chickens will go through anything in the act of foraging (4.00 / 3)

and I do mean anything. Horse manure, cat manure, dog manure, chicken manure, garbage - we have to cover the midden (compost pile) if we don't want the chickens scratching through it and spreading it out. Doesn't make any difference how disgusting it is to us, if there's even a remote chance of uncovering some delectable morsel, the birds will pick through it. Chickens don't have a word for gross.

And it's not just bugs they're looking for. Grain in the manure will work as well as maggots. And speaking of maggots, you should have seen them duke it out over a baggoty mole that I came across one day. One of the cats must have caught the mole, then left it after killing it. I came across it when I was stringing fence and it was litterally crawling. I whistled, chickens come running. Hoo Boy! They hit the lottery on that one!

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 01:25:59 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks. It's important to discuss this (4.00 / 3)

because a lot of people don't think it through, that chickens are performing a solid and naturally evolved role in disease vector control by doing this. House flies are serious disease vectors, and various other fly larvae infect livestock.

The contact the chickens have with the manure seems relatively irrelevant to me, compared with the good work they are doing killing these pest insects.

And I hear it makes the eggs a lot tastier, too.

Too many people think chickens should not perform their natural role as omnivorous birds (as are many other species of birds) because somehow this will keep them cleaner, when in fact a healthy, natural diet and lifestyle for a chicken will as likely as not increase the bird's resistance to disease, or at least I'd imagine so. I can't think of any reason why not.

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 01:50:02 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I agree completely (4.00 / 3)

I have to laught every time I hear some egg producer claiming that they feed their hens only a vegetarian diet. Chickens are many things, but not vegetarians....

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 02:06:34 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Heh... (4.00 / 2)

Yeah, that's always a weird thing to see, isn't it?  Can't believe that's actually a selling point, but people do go for it...

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 02:16:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

the idea is that they are not being fed (4.00 / 2)

beef byproducts, which don't, IIRC, include feces, but do include the same sort of things that one might find in pet food.

I think this labeling plan is a spinoff of the Mad Cow scare. Prions live forever, right?

What's really BS is "free range" or "cage free" and "vegetarian" claimed simultaneously.


"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 02:38:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

One of the reasons they're safer (4.00 / 3)

is that there isn't an organic producer massive enough to need a 500,000-egg recall.

But organic operations eliminate most, if not all, of the suffering that 'conventional' producers put their hens through. A chicken in one of those battery operations is suffering from the moment they hatch to the time when they are gassed to death.

For me it's a question of sympathy and not seeing chickens they same way I perceive non-living things such as rocks.

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by: Crider @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 01:53:03 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Did I die and go to hell? (4.00 / 1)

Eggs from Iowa farms could come to table near you

By DAVID MERCER, Associated Press Writer - 1 min ago

You can tell from the headline that this article discusses the diversion of the contaminated eggs into processed egg products, but it goes beyod that. It also discusses the potential diversion of infected layers into commerce for human food.

FURTHERMORE:

A similar process has been used to salvage other raw products tainted with bacteria. Ground beef found to contain E. coli bacteria, for instance, is sometimes diverted for use in precooked products such as frozen meatballs, said Don Schaffner, a professor and microbiologist at Rutgers University.

Tainted meat could also wind up being used in canned soup, he said.

Well, maybe so. Maybe I have eaten such meat in a meatball sub from Royal Farms. Maybe my kids have been eating ground beef known to have been contaminated by E. coli, but fuck! Nobody told them, or me!

Because the farms involved in the recall have so many hens, Schaffner said, "it would be a catastrophic waste if these hens were not going to be used in some way in the food supply."

I dunno. Jill, how about feeding this stuff to your feline friends?

@#$%^&*()_+/?.,XXXX~|\

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by: count @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 21:49:09 PM UTC

Maybe we need... (4.00 / 1)

...to question the ultimate 'efficiency' of a system which creates such potential for 'catastrophic waste', eh?

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 02:19:10 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

aren't the new and improved kinds of e.coli (4.00 / 2)

the kind we get from feedlot cows with improper gut pH, harder to kill than others?

I surfed briefly and what I saw was that e. coli is like salmonella; kills off fairly reliably at about 165oF.

Isn't there more to it than that? Not sure.

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 02:51:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I do not question (4.00 / 2)

that products can be cooked to be safe from E. coli or salmonella, but it really slams my shutters to not be able to know that this stuff might be in my food, unknown to me. And of course this thought occurs: the ability to offload their contaminated material, perhaps even being able to charge money for it, seems extremely unfair and very poor public policy, even if it can be rendered harmless. If Hillandale and the DeCosters can still sell their eggs and hens, this whole experience becomes little more than a minor inconvenience in their minds. A little bad PR, but so what?

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by: count @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 02:59:50 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I always assume food can be contaminated (4.00 / 2)

I'm a gardener. I grow some of my own food. I know there are house mice around. I'm sure they don't care how I feel about salmonella. And birds; they don't care much either.

I trap and there are local cats. But still. And I really would not want the birds to leave.

Salmonella is part of life, but it's not that hard to kill. The more we understand it, the better we can work to protect ourselves from it. To expect the corporations to do it for us will not lead to their caring more; it will lead to their using more and more toxic measures to ensure everything they sell is us sterile, without much concern as to the side effects of ensuring such.

I've read extreme examples of prose suggesting one not compost material that might be contaminated with salmonella. I find that bizarre advice.

165oF will do it. People eat eggs all the time without getting salmonella poisoning (or they get it and don't realize they have it).

When people say they have a 24 hour intestinal bug; that's likely salmonella.

Just found this site; might be of interest. Run by a guy at san diego state.

http://www.salmonella.org/

Just sayin'


"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 03:12:50 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

also (4.00 / 2)

I always make a point of regularly cleaning my cutting board with very hot water. A little soap, yes. But VERY hot water.

Soap will dissolve grease that can harbor bacteria, but heat is what reliably kills salmonella.

If you already know any of this, please don't feel condescended to. I always assume I don't know who is reading and might not be so informed :-)

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 03:16:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

we're all here to learn. nt (4.00 / 2)

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by: count @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 03:55:08 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

def, works both ways! (4.00 / 2)

You're a good crew. I regret my extended absence.

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 04:41:23 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Salmonella does not have to come from a source point (4.00 / 2)

such as feed.  Salmonella is present at low levels in the eggs and chickens if the state does not require the birds to be salmonella free.

With the deplorable conditions at these factor farms a flair up can come from high temps and lots of rain, which is what's been happening in Iowa this summer.

Pennsylvania egg producers and government officials took action against low levels of salmonella in the 80's and they've had an excellent health record. It only takes a little prevention to keep the public safe, but that little bit is considered profit left on the table by industrial Ag.
 

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by: OrganicGeorge @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 22:36:07 PM UTC

Quality Eggs (4.00 / 2)

has been certified salmonella-free for a decade. I do not know who does the certification, nor whether the certification means anything. Even if it is meaningful, nobody knows what happens to the feed and pullets after they arrive at the farms. Do infected mice contaminate the feed?

Not useful to speculate at this point, I think. FDA has completed its initial investigation. Let's see what they come up with.

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by: count @ Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 23:23:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

fishing around some (4.00 / 2)

I get the impression that the mice come inside buildings in bad weather, get into the chicken feed, and leave mouse droppings that pass salmonella infection into the feed.


"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 03:01:12 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

a link (4.00 / 2)

http://www.accuweather.com/blo...

with a quote

According to a Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences manual on food safety in the table egg industry, pest management is a critical control point for diminishing salmonella exposure in chickens.

"Rodents are the primary source of salmonella," said Trampel. "They bring it with them into the chicken houses."

The report said that rodents like mice and rats are among the leading causes of salmonella in chicken coops because their daily droppings can contain up to 230,000 salmonella bacteria.

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 03:02:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]