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Scrap metal, tires ... cows still eat way too much waste

2021-11-24T17:05:23.771Z


According to a note published this Wednesday evening by the Health Security Agency, up to 2 million cattle ingest metal waste (


Barbed wire, nails, pieces of scrap metal, tire residues, broken needles ... Every year, hundreds of thousands of animals swallow, when they graze on the grass in the fields, what farmers call "foreign bodies" .

According to an assessment unveiled this Wednesday evening by the Health Security Agency (Anses), at least 7 to 20% of cattle are concerned, or between 700,000 and two million animals on a herd which has more than ten in France.

To arrive at this assessment, ANSES relied on data collected in slaughterhouses, during autopsies and on farms, as well as on scientific literature.

The Robin des Bois environmental association was the first to warn of the extent of this phenomenon, which is very well known to breeders, whose cows concerned end up contracting "waste disease".

Nearly 30,000 deaths per year

When these metallic bodies accidentally get mixed up in cattle feed, their ingestion can cause damage to internal organs.

“Each year, around 30,000 carcasses are totally or partially excluded from consumption due to the presence of lesions linked to the ingestion of these foreign bodies”, underlines ANSES.

According to the health agency, these injuries cause the death of around 29,000 cattle per year in farms.

Where does this metal waste come from?

Often from the farm itself, as ANSES reminds us, which refers to "the metal structures of used tires used to hold the tarpaulins covering the fodder (silage) or the ends of fences possibly torn off when cutting hedges" .

Read alsoAnti-plastic microbes hide in the stomachs of cows

"All types of breeding are concerned, those indoors as well as those outdoors, but contrary to what one might think, cows living indoors seem to be more exposed than those grazing outdoors," notes Charlotte Dunoyer. , head of the risk assessment unit for health, food and animal welfare.

The supply of fodder from the outside, with the use of mechanization, has the effect of concentrating the pieces of metal in the distributed feed, compared to a situation where animals spend more time in pasture.

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“There are around 800,000 tonnes of end-of-life tires in farms, or around 80 million tires,” says Jacky Bonnemains, President of Robin des Bois.

These tires expose animals to accidental ingestion of 120,000 tonnes of steel wire.

These threads come out of the baked gum because of wear and tear, rain and sun.

The NGO is therefore calling for a grassland sanitation plan.

No longer using used tires for tarpaulins

A message heard by ANSES experts who ask breeders to "no longer use used tires to cover fodder", but also to equip agricultural equipment used for feeding cattle with an electromagnet, in order to trap ferromagnetic objects. If, however, metallic elements were to end up in the stomachs of cows, the health agency believes that the most effective solution to avoid serious injuries is to use ... a magnet.

“This object of a few centimeters is placed in the stomach of cows orally. By attracting and trapping metal debris, it prevents them from causing lesions by migrating into fragile organs, such as the heart or the diaphragm, ”explains ANSES, which states that the effectiveness of these devices is proven. "Studies carried out on dairy farms in Quebec have shown that animals equipped with a magnet have half the risk of being diagnosed with a pathology linked to the presence of foreign bodies than their congeners without one." received. "

To those who are worried about the well-being of the ruminant, ANSES emphasizes that "the installation of the magnet presents an extremely low risk for the well-being of the animal".

“The risk of the magnet dissolving seems to be negligible over the life of the cow,” indicates Nibangue Lare, who coordinated the expertise.

Even if the magnet degrades in a year, the content of its constituent elements would not pose a problem for the health of the animals, nor that of the humans consuming the animal products.

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Source: leparis

All life articles on 2021-11-24

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