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First of all to clear a few things up. Dave you of all people should know about the quality of beef. Supermarket beef is the worst. The supermarkets buy the poorest beef so that they can make the most profit. The good beef usually goes to the restaurants that ARE good. Try a t-bone at Flying J and one at a good steak restaurant. Alot of difference. It takes alot more money, care, and time to raise good beef.

Next about mad cow disease. 1st you are not at risk by eating the muscle. It's only by eating the brain, spinal cord, and other nervous tissue that a person would become infected. This would only happen by eating processed meat where everything is mixed together and reprocessed into balogna, hot dogs, etc. Most processors don't even use the brain and nervous tissue anymore. Also downed cattle are NOT processed for human consumption. Downed cattle are processed for other non human uses.

The spread of this disease is also extremely easy to control and prevent. It is not like hoof and mouth disease. This will not be an epidemic or outbreak. Likely we are going to see even more controls put into place than now. This is a good thing. The ONLY way to spread it is by eating infected tissue. With cattle this it is very easy to control the mad cow disease. A rancher feeding only his own grown hay and grain will never see mad cow disease. It isn't by the blood or anything else. ONLY by eating infected tissue. This only happens with commercial feed, which granted is the way alot of cattle are fattened. But it is also a product of the market. As profits were trimmed to zero and going bankrupt people look for alternate way to produce beef and not go under.

To me it is extremely sad that the biggest thing I have heard from all of this is how it's good news for the consumer. That now beef will be coming down in price. Just like with Walmart to hell with the producer let's just keep everything cheap for the consumer. Someone mentioned Mexican cattle coming across the border. Well what do you think they feed mexican cattle down there for protein? They sure was heck don't have the hay and good oats and corn we have here.

For the first time in a great long while ranching was profitable this fall. At market prices from before it was barely enough, and most times not enough, to make a living. Now prices finally get where you can make a living and this happens. I was trying to buy a ranch last fall and told the realtor the prices they were asking for the place a person could no way make it even break even. He said heck nobody buys a ranch anymore to make anything, it's just for show. And he's right. Alot of ranchers these days are rich only in the land they have. They can't make it pay. The only way they can make anything is by selling land. The wrath if a man wants to make a good living at it, let's just keep the prices low for the consumer. No high food prices in this country.

What will it do to the market? Well likely it is going to crash. For how long and the damages it will depend greatly on which side the public is going to believe. The spin doctor press or the truth. Unfortunately it has already spiraled downhill. In the short term it's going to have devastating effects on the cattle industry. It already has. How long it will last is another question. It's going to cost some people who haven't sold their cattle this year alot.

The sad part is there are already precautions in place. The disease was caught and the appropriate measures taken. The system worked just like it is supposed to. But you sure don't hear that. All you hear is all the hysteria. Dave the reason they said the food supply has not been contaminated is because the cow in question was never destined for the food supply. LIke I said earlier a downed cow is not put into public consumption.

Our food supply is the safest one in the world. There are more protections and precuations in place than anywhere else on earth.

On a plus side, as already noted here, there are significant markets available. Raising and selling beef on one's own ranch is certainly the way to go. The beef is better. The rancher gets a much better price and can make a good living as opposed to the middleman getting it all. A rancher can then afford to put quality feed into an animal and not have to resort to the products that caused this mess in the first place, most of which were not in this country. But before anyone goes off on it when these animal products were being used for protein there was absolutely nothing that showed that it did cause mad cow disease. As soon as we find out how this one caught it I sure hope that it isn't found out that someone violated those laws to not use animal by-products for feed. If it was it's sad that a few people did that and the effects it will have on the market. Yea poorboy it is a sad day for cattle but hopefully the truth will prevail in this matter.

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