Livestock

The Netherlands confirmed its first cases of the foot-and-mouth disease that has devastated cattle herds in Britain. The agriculture minister's announcement that four contaminated cows had been detected, and the near certainty that hundreds of goats had been infected, quashed hopes that the livestock disease could be bottled up in a small corner of France, the only other place in continental Europe where it has been identified.

European Union veterinary experts Tuesday ordered all livestock markets closed for two weeks in the 15-nation bloc in an effort to contain foot-and-mouth disease. The EU panel said that livestock transport would be allowed between farms and direct to slaughterhouses but that a ban would be imposed on all markets and assembly points for cattle, pigs and sheep.

For farmers, this stinks: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if the federal government decides to charge fees for air-polluting animals. Farmers are turning their noses up at the notion, which they contend is a possible consequence of an Environmental Protection Agency report after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases from motor vehicles amount to air pollution.

State ranchers are enduring a steep rise in mountain lion and coyote attacks on livestock, and blame a 1998 law banning certain kinds of animal traps. Recent U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics show that last year 14,900 cattle and calves were killed by predators in California--up from 5,600 killed in 1995. Coyotes are blamed for almost 67% of the cattle and calves killed by predators last year. Mountain lions and bobcats are blamed for 22%.

Farmers and ranchers will see income from livestock sales fall nearly 5% in 2004 in the wake of the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted Friday. "Livestock receipts are forecast to be down nearly $5 billion, due principally to a decline in beef export demand and a projected drop in cattle prices," the USDA said. The USDA projected 2004 livestock sales at $101 billion, down $4.9 billion from 2003.

A mystery illness has killed 17 farmers and sickened 41 others in southwestern China after they butchered sick pigs or sheep, China's official news agency said. Those affected had symptoms including high fever, fatigue and vomiting and "became comatose later with bruises," the New China News Agency said. The agency said medical experts believed the illness was "not spreading further among humans."

At the Houston Livestock Show, Lesson No. 1 is this: If the bull isn't blow-dried, he doesn't stand a prayer. Lesson No. 2: To keep a heifer's tail from being mussed after it has been freshly teased, wrap the bottom end in a plastic bag, attached with a rubber band. Strange truths, these, for the uninitiated. But for the people whose livelihoods are affected by how well their cattle do at the show, a 1-ton bull gets all the attention of a prize poodle.

Summer Swann, a willowy 17-year-old Canoga Park High School junior, looked mighty frail as she tried to haul her half-ton steer, Diesel, into a show ring at the school's small farm. With a few forceful tugs on a rope hooked to the animal's halter, Summer guided Diesel into the ring, where her classmates frantically tried to get a grip on their uncooperative sheep, goats and calves.

Eight-year-old Duke Keeble of Sun Valley had two things to be proud of after participating in Saturday's Junior Livestock Auction at the San Fernando Valley Fair. First of all, young Keeble raised the fair's grand champion lamb, a 115-pound baby named Jason. And second, Duke helped persuade a neighbor, Terry Shelton, to bid a whopping $36 a pound for the lamb, money Duke will use to buy more animals to raise next year. "I got a little carried away," Shelton said, but you can't blame him.

Congress has overturned legislation that loosened the 7-month-old standards regulating organic food. The legislation allowed poultry farmers and other livestock producers to skip using organic feed, but still label their products as organically grown.