The Argument Essay: Corn Is Destroying Our Livestock

1. Augustine

Lorie Augustine
September 19, 2011
English 122

Corn is it hurting our livestock

Corn is commonly used as feed grain in beef cattle diets throughout the United States.
Cows see very little grass now days in their life span. They supported with the diet of corn which causes them to become fat and bloated and become depended on antibiotic. The drug causes the cows to developed liver damages. So if it causes health risk to the cows imagine what it does to our health Most feedlot uses corn as the main supply for feeding their cows. It is an absurdity in the way modern feedlots work: Cows are ruminants, which is to say, they’ve evolved to exist on grass. But cows in industrial feedlots are fed diets that
consistently fed 75% of corn. Corn is much denser than grass (which requires less land so cattle can be fed in smaller area). Corn has little protein and is rich and starchy, which causes cows to become bloated. Since cows did not evolve to exist on corn, feeding them such grain-heavy diets can cause health problems like bloated and acidosis. To keep them healthy, modern cows receive high doses of antibiotics—a practice which has the potential to lower these medicines’ future effectiveness by promoting the development of resistant superbug. Once the cows start eating the (corn), they are more vulnerable. They’re stressed so they more defenseless to all the different diseases cows get. But specifically they get bloat, which is just a horrible thing to happen. They stop ruminating. For example, you have an image of a cow

On grass ruminating, this is chewing its cud and burping a lot.
In fact, a lot of greenhouse gases come out of the stock as a methane emerges from their mouth as they eructate—it’s a technical term. And they bring down saliva in this process, and it keeps their stomach vey base rather than acid. So you put in the corn and this layer of slime forms over the rumen (stomach). Just picture the rumen; it’s a 45-gallon fermentation tank. It’s essential fermenting the grass. Suddenly your slime forms and the gas can’t escape, and the rumen just expands like a balloon. It’s pressing against the lungs and the heart, and if nothing is done, the animal suffocates. Some things that can be done if you catch it in time is to stick a hose done the cows esophagus to release the gas and feed it hay and grass, and it’s a lot healthier. But not all cows bloat. They are prone to bloat. On most farms of feedlot cows that don’t bloat tends to become acidosis which is acidifying of the rumen (stomach), more like a bad case of heartburn. Given cows to much corn it ulcerates the rumen; ended up in the liver, creating liver abscesses. Most cows on feedlots eating this rich diet of corn are prone to having their liver to become damaged, so to prevent this or limit it they need another regiment of antibiotics. But the antibiotic in turn, lead to resistance: resistant microbes that then come and infect us. So there are hidden
costs. Reason why most feedlots tend to want corn as a staple diet is financial standpoint it makes the cows grow much more quickly. It makes them become fatter and allows us to speed up the lifespan of a cow. Example, cows that we used to let grow to be four of five years old before we eat them [and] now we’ve got it down to 14 months, and we’re heading toward 11 months.
What allows us to do this is because of their corn diet and getting them off hay and grass. We

Also feed them corn because it’s the cheapest, most convenient thing we can give them.
Corn is incredibly cheap; it cost about $2.25 for a bushel of corn, which is like 50 pounds. It actually costs less to buy than it costs to grow, because of subsidy. Ideally, I’d like to see us go back to a system where we relied more on grass. Imagine millions of acres of corn and soybean...were turned back to pasture on which animals grazed. That system worked pretty well. It makes very healthy, meat, and does a lot less environmental damages. We’ve heard a lot about overgrazing on the Western range, and it certainly is an environmental problem. But in recent years, the environmentalists will tell you, that’s not the big environmental impact of the cattle business. It’s on the feedlot. I think it is possible to build a more sustainable food
system.
Government needs to regulate how our feedlots distribute food to the cows, stopping the use of corn. If we were to change back to grains and grass, overall we would have much healthier livestock. Then much of the blame for our current health problems will not lie in our agricultural policies. Many believe that with our cows ridden with diseases tend to affect our health overall in our country, so with better feeding can eventually cost less, for many Americans will have less health problems.
In conclusion if we were to think about the health the cows, how it would benefit our environment and health problems. Stop the use of corn and go back to grains and grass the essential diet that they have always eaten. This would contribute to less cows dying and spreading diseases among each other and would help have safe meat to be distrusted around the world.

Lardy, Greg. “Feeding Corn to Beef Cattle URL.” A S-123 December 2002

Pollen, Michael. “Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Penguin. New York . 2006