Ever driven on I-5 and seen the giant mega feedlot off the freeway? You can smell it from a long way off. Piles of excrement, and lots of cows wading in excrement, or standing on piles of excrement. Has to be one of the most disgusting places I've ever seen in California. Happy cows they are not- and there are thousands of them- every time I drive by.
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Our next stop is Harris Ranch; not the oasis-like restaurant, hotel and airstrip complex that offers up some of the only non-fast food along I-5, but the feedlot, one exit north, where a stadium-full of cows stand on a feces-strewn dirt yard that spans what looks like 600 square acres. Covered in muck, they are crammed tightly on the grass-less lot. "Here's an idea," quips Allen. "In the name of efficiency, let's raise our cows on shit."
Everyone climbs out of their seats to scribble notes and snap pictures of the deplorable conditions of the thousands of beef cows which are rendered somewhat beautiful by the October sunlight. Many are lined up at troughs fattening themselves for slaughter on, among other things, corn, ground up chicken manure and cotton seed. "After they defoliate the cotton with organophosphate nerve poisons like DEF, Folex and paraquat, or bomb-making materials like sodium chlorate," says Allen, "they feed the seeds and other gin trash–untreated–to beef and dairy cattle. Cows frequently eat a diet of up to ten percent cottonseed and gin trash because it contains so much protein and fiber."
sustainablecotton.org |
