Sweet Times For Cows As Gummy Worms Replace Corn Feed 432
PolygamousRanchKid writes "As the worst drought in half a century has ravaged this year's U.S. corn crop and driven corn prices sky high, the market for alternative feed rations for beef and dairy cows has also skyrocketed. Brokers are gathering up discarded food products and putting them out for the highest bid to feed lot operators and dairy producers, who are scrambling to keep their animals fed.
In the mix are cookies, gummy worms, marshmallows, fruit loops, orange peels, even dried cranberries. Cattlemen are feeding virtually anything they can get their hands on that will replace the starchy sugar content traditionally delivered to the animals through corn.
Operators must be careful to follow detailed nutritional analyses for their animals to make sure they are getting a healthy mix of nutrients, animal nutritionists caution. But ruminant animals such as cattle can safely ingest a wide variety of feedstuffs that chickens and hogs can't.
The candy and cookies are only a small part of a broad mix of alternative feed offerings for cattle. Many operators use distillers grains, a byproduct that comes from the manufacture of ethanol."
Re:Cows eat Grass (Score:5, Funny)
Cheap beef came from feeding cows corn. A median income family in the US could eat beef for dinner every day because of corn fed cows. These days it's getting out of reach.
Although, I am a bit worried about what this will do to gummy worm prices.
Organic insulin. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Organic insulin. (Score:3, Funny)
I insist we only use organic insulin for all of the newly diabetic cows! It's sustainable... or something.
I'm sure Wilford Brimley will be along at any minute to help out our diabeetus-stricken cows.
Obligatory Charlton Heston (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Let Them Eat Cake (Score:5, Funny)
Gummi worms are fit for human consumption?
Re:Cows eat Grass (Score:5, Funny)
No one is building stripmalls in Iowa or apartment complex in East Bumblefuck Texas.
Re:NOOOOOO! (Score:2, Funny)
Oh wait, your American.
find a fucking immigrant the first day then follow him to wear he eats
If you EVERY see two people argue
And here I thought it was OUR educational system that sucks... atleast we're semi-literate here. This diatribe against American food from a continent that has given us such delights as haggis, blood pudding, saurkraut...