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Retired dairy cows worth less after slaughterhouse closesCHINO, Calif. (AP)--The closure of the slaughterhouse connected to the nation's largest-ever beef recall is hurting the bottom lines at dairies that no longer have a nearby buyer for their old cows, animal auctioneers and experts said. Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., had been the best customer for cows retired from the roughly 130 dairies in inland Southern California that would not survive a long haul to slaughterhouses in the Central Valley or Arizona, auctioneer Rod Bolcao told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside in a story published March 3. Westland/Hallmark recalled 143 million pounds of beef last month after an undercover video taken by the Humane Society of the United States showed animals apparently being mistreated by slaughterhouse workers. With the slaughterhouse now closed and under investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearby dairies are losing the income collected from selling the cows and instead must pay to have them euthanized. Diminished competition and long hauling distances have resulted in slaughterhouses paying about 18 percent less than Hallmark had been willing to pay, Bolcao said. That amounts to a loss of about $84 per head. Sybrand Vander Dussen, a dairyman and president of the Chino Basin Milk Producers Council, said the change came at a time when many dairies are struggling to stay profitable in the face of increasing feed costs. The skimpier prices might encourage dairies to operate differently, California Department of Food and Agriculture marketing director Kelly Krug said. When dairies are enjoying high prices for retired cows, operators are motivated to milk the animals "until they drop, as long as they are producing milk," he said. But when margins are slimmer, he said, dairies will retain only those cows that produce the most milk and sell others to slaughterhouses while they're young and healthy enough to fetch better prices. "If they slaughter a few months earlier, you would not have the reduction in slaughterhouse prices," Krug said. 3/17/08 Date: 3/12/08 Advertisement
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