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hi all,

several ppl have written me saying they often get beef that's been oat
fed, and while i've no idea how much a cow would need to eat in order to
bloat, i'm sure it's a lot more than the odd handful once in a while.
like horses, there is a tolerance to oats, how much is safe for cattle i
don't know.  however, i want to point out the vast difference between
eating beef or chicken that has been fed oats, or in the case of chicken,
grain fed, and drinking the milk from a cow. i'm  no chemist, but common
sense would dictate that milk isn't broken down to the molecular level
quite the way muscle is, and that would be why a person would react to
gluten in milk and not in meat. milk is basically a liquid version of
what the mother has been eating. any new mom who accidently had broccoli
or cabbage can attest to how it affects a wee one. muscle has a totally
different purpose, and what the animal eats would only play a role in the
quality and fat content of the meat. it is for this reason, in fact, that
there *are* beef cattle and milk cattle. daily milking lowers the fat
content of an cow, makes her thinner and less desireable as a slaughter
animal.

so while i will attest that cows *can* be fed oats, which was perhaps
misleading in my first post, i still adamantly maintain that a lot isn't
healthy for them. and in this case the oats would be used to fatten them
up for slaughter.  in the case of dairy cows, those big huge silos
contain enough fermented grass and hay in them to keep a cow happy and
bit tipsy for years.

it would be interesting to find out exactly what is put into a silo,
actually, i've no idea myself. i do know however, that it's fermented,
and as one farmer i know said, most dairy cows are to a certain extent,
alcoholic because of it. HOWEVER, before i get a ton of postings on this,
may i say that a silo serves the purpose of breaking down the grass so
the cow can digest it more quickly, like a fifth stomach.  at least, that
was how it was explained to me, by the farmer of the alcoholic cows:)

also, i would like to say to those people who feed their slaughter cattle
oats, we had steers for our own consumption on the farm way back when.
they lived on barnyard grass in the summer and hay in the winter, and
i've never had more delicious meat since. and, after witnessing the
outcome of an unfortunate cow that happened upon an open oat bin, i still
wonder if oats add at all to the quality of the beef.

elizabeth