Border Opening

Has anyone heard of the Canadian/US border opening to older breeding cattle? Heard it could be only two more months.

I mean NO DISRESPECT to my neighbors to the north, but....with the cases of BSE in Canada found in cattle that were born after the feed ban, I find it quite scary to think those cattle might enter the US and give other countries, vegetarians, and animal rights activist in the states just more fire power!
I don't have answers, just a big concern. ???

I would be more concerned with your testing policies compared to ours.  The reason that we find so many is b/c we test alot of older cows that are sick on the farm and 99% of the tests that come back positive are found on the far and tested there and the carcass never even comes close to the food supply chain.  I think that your govnt is hiding alot of results and is scared to follow a similiarte testing plan.

you are right TPX.  the US government won't even allow independent testing, and you can't even test your own herd if you developed a test on your own, and wanted to sell it as BSE free by test.  and this the same government that has "voluntary" NAIS.  I'm thinking the government is a little too independent of the voting public.  amazing their total disregard for the US. it's as if they are their own country.  when those that can vote themselves benefits from the public coffers exceeds the revenues, this country is so over.  this was shown to be true of EVERY democracy in history.  it's called mob rule.  it's why the framers of the constitution expressly stated what was the confines of the federal government and everything else was left to the states.  we are unaware of this as we cede total control under the guise of commerce clause and general welfare phrases that have no meaning whatsoever, and were used to limit federal government, but of course we are too busy to understand that, just as we are too busy to understand a jury is not obligated to convict, even if the evidence is sufficient.  it was a protection to protect the people from the government, who have become the sole arbiter of ............ now about robert redford ;D


where's those chill pills

Shortly after the border closed, I sold some embryos to a retired federal vet from Georgia. In discussing the BSE situation in Canada, he told me that our officals should stop looking so hard for BSE. He said" down here when we find them cows that are staggering around we just call it rabies and deal with it that way". I am not sure if he was telling me what he knew, or not, but it did start me thinking.... and wondering.
Kind of reminds me of a few years ago when most of the world was worried about SARS. Canada has several cases , all of which resulted from people arriving from Hong Kong, China, and other far east countries, at our airports. There were many cases around the major Canadian airports of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Entire hospitals were quaranteed and many people were quaranteened in their homes for weeks. It did seem quite strange that while Canada was experiencing this, the US had zero cases. Interestingly, the cases of severe pneumonia at the hospitals near major US airports, spiked in the same time period. I saw an interesting article in a medical journal about this, that was shown to me by a leading doctor here.

Canada has one of the best testing and tracking programs in the world. We have had a mandatory cattle identification program for several years. It is most likely that most of the cases of BSE could have been traced back to the herds of origin if we had not had this tracibility program. At the same time, we have thousands and thousands of people living in this country that have disappeared after they have been ordered deported back to where they came from. I think the solution to this problem is an easy one.... every person who arrives at a Canadian airport or harbour that claims refugee status or comes on a visitation visa, should be given a cow when they arrive. That way, if the government ever needs to find them  when they forget to leave, they can.

and tie that in with voting, or the inability to vote.  amazing how the threat from illegal voting is always portrayed as less than the threat from someone not being able to vote cause they don't have an id.  we are doomed.  sorry, scratch that.  it's already over.  more chill pills needed.  help.

oh, geeze here I go... I usually don't get involved but I don't want to miss a good opportunity to throw a few things out to you reading this-
Our government has totally lost contact with us, the voting public.  I am embarrassed to bring this up but did anyone here Sen.Voinivich (yes, a rep. of mine) on Hannitys radio talkshow about the immigration bill?  He basically said that he knew better then the people and that he wasn't going to be intimidated by us.  Ridiculous.  The only reason I bring this up and tie it into our topic of "to much government" is to bring the "Fair Tax" to your attention.  If you haven't heard of it you can go to the www.fairtax.org website and take a look at it.  It would pull power away from them and give it back to us.  I also encourage you to check out and listen to www.boortz.com.  Ok, I will leave it at that before I go on ranting and raving...thanks for a moment to spew a thought or 2 ;D

Thanks for not cutting my head off yet!!!  (clapping)

And I DO realize our gov't has lots of downfalls, but who put those people in power? The voting public or the NON-voting public???? I vote at every election held, yes even schoolboard elections! By voting that gives me the RIGHT to complain, so if you don't vote, hush up please.

JIT: Isn't that equalivalent to the "three S rule"? Shoot, Shovel, Shut up.  And I am sure that happens in ALL countries!!

On to the BSE thing. I do agree that Canada has a testing procedure in place and catches them earlier, but why did this same gov't not catch the feeding of by-products after the ban was in effect?  Why was this discovered only after the BSE was found??
Could someone from Canada please explain your tracking system? Who implements it? Who stores the information? Who has access to it? Is it a farm ID, or animal ID?  Do you report number of animals, or just sites? What are the penalties for a positive test for BSE, etc.? What is the procedure of contacting neighbors if you are positive for something?  And has there been any E.coli, Salamenella lawsuits from consumers after an outbreak?  Just wanting information.

Thanks for the information....and thanks for being tolerant of my unpopular opinion!!

NEWS FLASH!!!!    USDA has just announced today that the US will again be accepting all classes of cattle from Canada providing that they are born after a date in 1999 ( I heard it reported and can't remember the exact date, however it is in 1999. This will commence on November 19th. The report says that USDA would have considered opening it sooner however, they are still working on the permit that will be used to allow imports of these cattle.

Show Heifer... I only have a few minutes right now so I will try to answer some of your questions later this evening. You ask some very good questions, and I don't know all the answers but I will fill in what I can. To explain Canada's tracibility policy will take some time, and I will try my best to explain what I know. I will say that we went through similar opposition and concern that is being seen in the US presently however, I for one, and thankful we had this system in place or we would not be seeing this border issue resolved for a long time to come. As for cutting your head off, I would never think of it. You only expressed your opinion, just as I did. That is one of the nice things about this board. We can say what we feel and believe. That is a good thing. 

justintime said:

NEWS FLASH!!!!    USDA has just announced today that the US will again be accepting all classes of cattle from Canada providing that they are born after a date in 1999 ( I heard it reported and can't remember the exact date, however it is in 1999. This will commence on November 19th. The report says that USDA would have considered opening it sooner however, they are still working on the permit that will be used to allow imports of these cattle.

Show Heifer... I only have a few minutes right now so I will try to answer some of your questions later this evening. You ask some very good questions, and I don't know all the answers but I will fill in what I can. To explain Canada's tracibility policy will take some time, and I will try my best to explain what I know. I will say that we went through similar opposition and concern that is being seen in the US presently however, I for one, and thankful we had this system in place or we would not be seeing this border issue resolved for a long time to come. As for cutting your head off, I would never think of it. You only expressed your opinion, just as I did. That is one of the nice things about this board. We can say what we feel and believe. That is a good thing. 

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My understanding is that with the imported aged dairy cow that ended up with BSE in a Washington dairy since there was no good traceability and they had no ideas which of the 400 (or maybe 4000) steer calves in a feedlot was her's that they ended up "sacrificing" all of them - now that is the result of lack of traceability....

Here in Canada, and positive animal with BSE was traced back to the herd of origin. All the herds that this animal had been in were destroyed. In some cases there were hundreds and hundreds of cattle destroyed. Some of the problems arose from people who had feed such as bone meal and  minerals containing bone meal, stored on farm from before the feed ban. When we were running our feedlot in the late 70s to early 90s we fed a pile of bone meal in our rations. Back then we did not know anything about BSE.

wow, I hope some can come in time for NAILE. That would be cool seeing the Canadian people showing again.

Red