Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #171: Do Livestock Really Need Vaccines? Joel Salatin’s Surprising Answer

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Episode #171: Do Livestock Really Need Vaccines? Joel Salatin’s Surprising Answer · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't that long ago that livestock didn't have any vaccines and didn't even have any antibiotics, no hormone treatments, no, you know, nothing.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: This very idea that we can't even have a healthy livestock, you know, without the vaccines is a an incredible uh whatever forgetfulness, you know, of where we've been.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, everybody.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough, and I'm here with our favorite farmer, Joel Salatin.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: And today it's all about Joel, folks.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: He's going to be talking about uh whether or not livestock need to be vaccinated in order to be healthy.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should already conclude what you're gonna say, but I'd like to see you know how you are pontificating about this topic.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, what stimulated me to um think about this, Cena, was because I got an email yesterday uh from a a gal, uh a lady who's um animal science major at Virginia Tech.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she's and all the students have to do a some sort of an animal project, and um, and she's wanting to do a project.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know what the what her thesis or what her goal is, but she wants to use unvaccinated cattle, cows in this project.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the professor is pushing her back saying, no, you can't do that because we need healthy animals in your in your project.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and she's pushing back saying, well, they don't need vaccines to be healthy.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh even within what a lot of people don't realize, uh, even in organics, organic makes no statement about vaccinations.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, under organic certification, animals can be vaccinated.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, even in, you know, among my whatever close friends and associates within the natural, uh, sustainable, regenerative, you know, whatever you want to, whatever label you want to, and we remember we're beyond labels, uh, whatever label you want to put on it, uh, even in our tribe, our community, there's there's a tremendous amount of disagreement uh among practitioners about how many vaccines and what level of vaccines are necessary.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh I I thought it might be nice to kind of uh jump into the um into the non-vaccine thinking kind of at on a broad on a broad philosophical level.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um just to give folks who are who are talking to their farmers or who are farmers some you know some some coaching, some encouragement uh in in this sphere.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So so you know, so she emails, you know, and and says, uh what you know uh do you know of any research on a no on a no vaccination livestock protocol?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um so my first response to her, Cena, was the problem is there's no research money in proving farmers don't have to buy things.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is the problem.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, all the research, you know, go to every research project being done in any, you know, at any uh facility, and there's always some monetization possibility out the end of it.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I know you could say, well, if farmers didn't have to use vaccines, if you had research saying they didn't have to use vaccines, then farmers wouldn't have to spend any money and farmers would make more money.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, yeah, okay, you could say, well, you monetize it out the back door because the farmers are more profitable and you know, and it it all works that way.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a that's a long ways away from the actual, you know, uh financial monetization of a project.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so there's just there's just no research.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and of course you've been in, I'm not a researcher, you are, but my sense is I don't know of any research project like this that's done with the end result being let's find out if people don't have to buy what we're researching.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't happen.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when you have a you know, when you have a student like this in good faith in an academic setting, trying to justify a no vaccine protocol and the professors asking for research to show that it's not necessary, you know, the the the poor lady's at a the student is at a disadvantage because uh because it just doesn't exist.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's a real conundrum, you know, it's a real conundrum when we're depending on research to lead us to the truth, but the all research is incentivized by some sort of dollar amount hanging out the the other end of it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you've seen this all your life, but that's you know that that's the reality.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the first the my my first I had several responses.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was my first one that that I'm sorry, you know, uh, but there's just a pretty lack of that kind of um research.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: My second argument or or idea for her was how do you think livestock survived for centuries before 1950 or 1940?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, this whole you gotta vaccinate animals to keep them healthy is a very, very recent thing.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in poultry, things like Newcastle's disease, the Merrick's vaccination, uh, those are all kind of you know respiratory things in poultry, those all really only became a problem that was that was uh documented as flocks started getting bigger and bigger, you know, in the 19 from 19 uh like 1910 to 1925.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, uh people started, you know, the industrial revolution brought on larger and larger farms.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, a lot of these things were that they were brought on by the by the centralization and scale that started developing about a hundred years ago.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um the fact is that even in massive flocks and massive herds, both wild animals and their domestic counterparts, which didn't exist in massive herds and massive um uh flocks, you know, thrived for centuries, you know, without these things.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: We assume that what is, what is today, is what's always been, and and what is today, in many cases in modern America, what is today is very, very recent.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's amazing how whatever how how short our memory is to remember how things might have been, you know, before uh when things are the way they are.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just went through one, I was just in uh Switzerland over this last weekend, and and uh so of course the conference was in German, because in Switzerland they speak German.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the conference was all translated.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've I've spoken in all sorts of different countries all over the world all my life and used and had translators, you know.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, people have the little headphones, and there's a translator in a booth in the back, and you know, they're simultaneous translating.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So the person uh is listening on their headphones and they can hear it, you know, in in um in simultaneous translation.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I always have a great time with the translators, you know, because I'm I'm a word guy.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love word, I love communication.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm always I'm always uh and and and translators, the the it almost 90% of them when I'm done with the day, they come up to me and they said and they say, you know, nobody's ever you know thanked us or or been kind to us like you have, because I'm just fascinated by somebody who can literally who can hear it in one language, one you know, in one ear, and spit it out their mouth a different language.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, to me, that's just that's almost like divine, you know, how does a person do that?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so anyway, so here I am, you know.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: So so they say, now um, we're gonna use artificial intelligence to do the translation.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I asked them, I said, so who's gonna translate?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking for the for the little booth in the back.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um I want to go meet the translators because I just, you know, hug them and love on them and just tell them how special they are.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's there.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be artificial intelligence.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a screen up next to me, and there's a QR code, and they jump in on an app, and the app is broadcast through a smartphone onto a screen, and the screen is typing, typing simultaneously my presentation as I speak, it's typing it simultaneously, like about five seconds behind what I say is coming up in German on the screen so people can read it, everything that I'm saying.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everything.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm even when I say, oh my goodness, even when I say, wow, even when everything it says.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and so, so for fun, of course, I I turn around and I look, you know, and I said, Hey, let's see what it does with this.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, mob stocking herbivorous solar conversion, lignified carbon sequestration, fertilization.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when people are translating Cena, uh, I watch them in the booth, you know.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm watching there because I tell them, I say, now look, if I go too fast or it gets too technical, you know, give me a give me a wave me down here, and we'll, you know, make sure everybody gets it because I I want I want people to understand it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, every time I do that, the the the uh translators in the booth, they just start laughing, you know, and and and it's it's just hilarious.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's always funny.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: AI didn't miss a beat.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just typed it right out, just as fast as I could say it.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm thinking, so now I'm thinking, so we don't need translators anymore.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna go to AI, and in and in five years, that whole the thousands of people who have these translation jobs, they're not gonna exist anymore, and suddenly there will be a new reality.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and and that's the way I don't want to get too tired up with that whole story, but but I I'm I'm amazed at how quickly we forget how lately a lot of these things have have come.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, you know, I'm old enough to remember uh manual typewriters.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I learned to type on a manual typewriter.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I remember eight-track tapes, you know, they didn't exist for very long, but I remember that was the coolest thing.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, eight-track tape player, you know.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I never had that, but you know, it we're so alike because the first thing that came to my head about 30 seconds ago was, oh, I remember having a typewriter.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, but another one is cell phones, right?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like even people of my generation, we didn't grow up with cell phones.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I remember being in high school and a couple people had a pager, right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then and that was like a big thing that somebody had pager, and they thought they were so cool, and you had the cool kids, cool kids.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I was not one of those cool kids, but um, but anyhow, it's it's interesting, even how how much we forget that these phones, these cell phones haven't been in our lives that long, but we're so addicted and hooked to them that it's like they've been with us forever and we freak out when we can't find our phone or go without it for five minutes, you know.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because because it's change.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like you're saying the it's like that past didn't even exist or so long ago that I can't even, you know, like I remember Donnie has said this to me several times, like, gosh, what did we ever do without our phones?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, when you're out and about, you need to call somebody or whatever.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, but it wasn't that long ago that we didn't have any of that.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, it wasn't that long ago at all.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and it wasn't that long ago that that livestock didn't have any vaccines and didn't even have any antibiotics, no hormone treatments, no, you know, nothing.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh so this this this this very idea that we can't even have uh healthy livestock, you know, without the vaccines is a is just uh an incredible uh whatever forgetfulness, you know, of where we've been.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: But Joel, what about uh so the cattle, for instance, that are raised in these in industrial feedlots, or like the chickens, let's take the chickens in the CAFOs.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't you say that they because of the conditions that they live in?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about how like antibiotics, for instance, that's a preventative measure.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: So they need to have the antibiotics because of the environment in which they live, correct?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think I've heard you say that before.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that that's correct.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what what enabled the cave the concentrated animal feeding operations, you know, Tyson, Tyson chicken houses, what enabled those to occur was the antibiotic revolution, because those environments are so filthy and filled with fecal particulate that there's just chronic infection in the respiratory tract, in the digestive system.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're you're you're standing on your toilet all day, it's filthy, so you're you know your feet tend to get infected, all this stuff.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so the it was the it was the uh the discovery of antibiotics that actually enabled the you know the factory chicken house to actually get started.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: So along those lines, then can you can you if antibiotics are required for those chicken raised in the CAFOs, if you believe in viruses, wouldn't you say then by extension that the chickens living in the CAFOs have to have the vaccinations?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um in in general, yes, they do get the vaccinations.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um do they have to have it?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well the hatcheries do administer the vaccines.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you, if you're buying chicks, if you're buying chicks from a hatchery, you have to tell them not to vaccinate if you want them not vaccinated.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't tell them, generally they will vaccinate uh for for for these things.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but the but the vaccines are primarily for you know for unsanitary or cramped conditions, something like that.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not gonna do that, if you're gonna give them plenty of room and they're not gonna be that many, all that, there's absolutely no reason to to vaccinate or do any of those things.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's it's it's a crutch.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a crutch to overcome, you know, management issues.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: But here so that that brings us kind of to my next uh point that I uh I wanted to touch her with and have her then, of course, present to her professor, was that the what happens to the genetic viability when you give vaccinations?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you give everyone a crutch, how do you know who can stand on their own two feet?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: If I've got a if got a room full here of people and I want to know, you know, who who's healthy who's healthy enough to stand, and I give everybody a crutch, I don't know who has healthy legs or not.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: But when I knock the crutches out, the people with broken legs and weaknesses, they fall over.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to be morbid here, but you know, they fall over, and the ones who have strong legs and feet, they can stand, and I and I find out very quickly.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so from a from a um you know, an apex being very uh you know primally natural here, uh we we are the apex predator species on the planet, humans, okay?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and so in in in in nature, the lions, you know, wolves, uh they're the big predators, and they grab the you know, the wobbly calf, the aged mother, you know, cow or bite, you know, uh cow, that's also bison has the same uh cows and bulls and bison or or wildebeest or whatever, okay.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um so they become the culling, the culling agent of the weak in nature.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Part of our responsibility as you know, as livestock producers, you know, we don't have the lions and we don't have the wolves to do our culling for us.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: So part of animal care is we have to step into that role of responsibility and we have to do the culling.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: We have to separate out the weak and the strong.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if if everybody gets a crutch, we can't tell, you know, we can't tell who the strong ones are and who the weak ones are.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and so this is why over time, in you know, in Western countries that have used these vaccines, our genetic strength has actually dropped over the last several decades.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Our our our our um our ability, the ability of our animals, and and maybe you, you know, if you want to move this into the human realm, that's that's okay if you want to.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm not ready, I'm not educated enough and smart enough to go there.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can just tell you that that the animals that have received the most um interventive interventive care with you know vaccines and antibiotics and all that stuff, those animals as a genetic group have become weaker and weaker and weaker over time.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um we really saw this, for example, about 10 years ago, we began breeding our own chickens.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we had taken um, you know, we've been getting them from the hatcheries up until then.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And within one or two years, we saw a a just a vertical line jump in robustness in our chickens.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because our only question was, are you old?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Are you healthy?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Are you productive?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what color your feathers are, I don't care, you know, any of these things that that the breeders are all you know fired up about, oh, this one's this one's a a breed, you know, breed perfect, you know, breed perfect picture.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because, you know, their tail is fluffy or their, you know, their comb is, you know, shaped like this or that or the other.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all we were interested in was functionality.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in no time, in no time, we saw how much more robust and vibrant these birds were because we were not maintaining breeding stock.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: We were not artificially propping up breeding stock.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So our survivors, I call this survivor genetics, the survivors that we were breeding, you know, were strong.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: They were really strong.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um and if you, you know, for example, um we just had Kit Pharaoh here.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Kit Pharaoh is the largest beef cattle, grass-based seed stock producer in the world.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um he he has herds in 13 states, like four or five thousand cows.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, great, great guy.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: He he um he's he's a good friend, great guy.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um he told me this one time.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: He said, he said, in the last you know, 80 years, if nobody had ever selected a cow, uh a bull, I'm sorry, selected a bull.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: From a cow younger than 10 years old, we would virtually have no cattle diseases and no veterinary expenses in the cattle industry.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, and the reason is because if anybody, if you have a cow that's given you eight calves in her 10 years, a calf every single year for, you know, eight, they they they calved their first time at two years.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, a 10-year-old cow will have given you if she's if she's the if she's the cream of the crop, you know, uh, she will have given you like, you know, uh eight or nine calves by the time she's 10 years old.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so if you if you never selected a bull from a cow younger than 10, it would mean that that genetic strength was expressed in a cow that, you know, had her calf, nursed her calf, weaned her calf, and then got bred again and had another calf every single year.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's you know, longevity is the number one criteria for um you know for for genetic, you know, genetic robustness.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and so so in the industry, if you become fiss fixated on on youth, um, you know, get get the young bull, um, you know, get the young cow, all that.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we instead of instead of appreciating the strength of age as an industry, everything has come quicker and quicker and quicker with quicker cycles, quicker turnovers, quicker everything.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're not selecting seed stock from older animals.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm going to, Cena, is that that the conundrum here for the student and the professor is the professor is right.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's right in that if she takes regular cows and does a project, chances are it's gonna get derailed because they'll get sick.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: But but we have made, we, I mean, we, you know, in in the cattle industry, um, we have made weak animals because of our selection criteria, our protocols have necessarily put us into a compromised situation.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And let me and let me just finish with one more uh one more critical one that I think is is important, and that is artificial insemination.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't want to get off into human, you know, in vitro and all that stuff, but I want you to think about this.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I have never I've never encountered anybody else in the world that has ever said this.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: So this is as far as I know, I'm the only one that's ever thought this or has expressed this idea.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I love these.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: The Joel originals.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is Joel Original.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: All right, all right.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: When you do artif when when the cattle industry, which uses a lot of artificial insemination, what they do is they electronically um manipulate the bull so that he does an ejaculation and it's caught in a jar.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: That sperm in that jar, then it turns into uh a hundred, normally, one ejaculation will make a hundred vials, little itty bitty capsules, a hundred capsules of semen for artificial insemination.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: So so you would you would breed a hundred cows from that one ejaculation from the bull, okay?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, under natural service, that one ejaculation is only going to make one calf.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because one sperm, one sperm is going to beat out all the other sperms and it's going to be the one that gets to the egg and make an embryo, okay?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Make a fertilized egg.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: One.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: But in artificial insemination, you are making a hundred calves.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you're using sperm number 99, number 98, number 97, all the way down to, you know, uh uh a hundred.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, the 99th poorest sperm is still going to be able to make a calf.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say, and again, I have no research for this, okay?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is just me trying to trying to think through the process.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: It makes sense to me that if we're making a bunch of calves from sperm that under a natural process would have never they were second best, third best, fourth best, you know, and then all the way down to 99th best, okay?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: If we're making calves from all those second and third and fourth best sperm, what does that do to the genetic trajectory, you know, over time?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not sure that you'd see it, you know, in first generation, but over time, what it seems to me like what you're doing is you are you are making embryos from weaker sperm versus the one that beat out all the other guys on his way to the egg.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that if I could jump in, I think that I've never thought about that before.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, but of course, I also didn't know that was the process that was happening, which is just fascinating to me that that's how they do this.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um it makes me really glad that I don't buy industrialized meat and chicken.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: But um, because going connecting that with your previous points, so I mean, and I agree with you, like that's not how God designed it.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, clearly it was designed for a reason that way that that one sperm made it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: So now we have what I'm gonna call kind of the inferior sperm that is making these embryos.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then to your previous point, then we we we coddle them, right?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like we take ownership and keep them alive in part by medicating them, yes, right?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: The antibiotics, the vaccines, and we feed them junk.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: So at the same time we're trying to keep them alive, we're giving them things that you know can hurt them um in the moment and and chronically for you know for the longevity.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it it just seems like it's so counterintuitive to me.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, it's like this whole process is so inefficient, ineffective.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And when you stop and think about it the way you've painted this picture, it's like why are we doing this?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how did we even get to that point where we think this is a good idea?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: We got to this point because somebody had a really superior bull.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and um well, how can I how can I get more calves out of this bull?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: So so that second and third and fourth rate sperm, they can still get to the egg, okay?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: They just didn't beat out the number one.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh and so the whole you know artificial insemination industry, and and it's a whole industry.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are there are whole um, you know, we talk about factory farming, there are entire factory, factory seed stock bull bull farms, uh, where these top bulls are selected and they go into stud and they just live in a in a in a great big house and whatever, you know, uh every couple of days somebody comes in and they collect this and it goes into these called semen straws.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're kept in liquid oxygen uh at minus, what is it, might like minus uh what is it, minus 100 degrees centigrade or something.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: It really, really cold.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and um and you know, and and they're they're kept they're kept um alive but frozen and sold all over the world.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean there are people here in the U.S.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: that are buying straws from New Zealand, buying straws from, you know, um uh South Africa, uh, you know, they go over the world.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and um and and I'm not suggesting, and if somebody's listening to this and they're in the cattle business, I'm not suggesting that these extremely, you know, these these supposedly extremely good bulls are um you know won't make won't won't imprint your herd.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you want if you want a better calf, I'm not suggesting that the number two, number three, number four sperm from that um from that take is is not going to show the benefits of that bull on your herd, you know, from whatever muscular growth, uh, you know, conformity, uh cut ability, you know, the amount of meat per bone.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's all sorts of all sorts of things uh that you're that you're looking for.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not suggesting that it that it won't that the that the number two, three, four, five sperm won't cast, won't cast a a um you know, a shadow onto your calves.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: What I am suggesting is that there are subtle costs, subtle costs of the process that very well may be overcoming that shadow that that your selection has cast on your herd.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and it may be a more propensity to respiratory problems, a propensity to huff problems, you know, all sorts of other things.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, and we've seen Temple Grandon, Temple Grandin uh talks about this a lot.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she says, look, an animal, an animal has has roughly three things that it needs energy for.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: One is to grow, one is to make babies, and one is to fun to fuel its immune system.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the three basic functions: the immune system, reproduction, and growth.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the three things.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and you can't, and all those three things have to be in balance.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you start over-selecting for one over another, then the other the other ones start to falter.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you select for growth over immune function, immune function falters.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and if you select for immune, growth falters.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why at our farm, we don't care if our animals aren't the fastest growing on the planet.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: People say, Well, your your animals are are not growing as fast as you know, this guy's over here.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's okay.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have any vet bills, you know, and they're healthy.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so um, so this this whole discussion, yeah.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just in my mind, I'm picturing this this you know, big-hearted, sincere-minded student and this professor interacting in their in their exchange, and and this student trying to express what I'm expressing to you right now, and he's just looking at her like, where are you coming from?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it uh like like they're on they're on different planets.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: But but but that that's my point, Cena.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is almost articulating from a different planet, from a from a different mindset, a different thought process.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so um it's certainly not something that you can change somebody's mind in one email, you know.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, because and even when you're talking about when you're talking about the system with the bulls and uh, you know, the take and the distribution, you know, with a hundred specimens, you know what it reminds me of?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of creating the monocultures that like the crap monocultures, you know, like where all of this is going toward, you know, mono, like yeah, yeah, uh-huh, just rows and rows of corn and rows and rows of soy.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so it reminds me of that on this genetic level with now the cows, that if they're really all coming from this, you know, this collection of bulls and we're getting hundreds, uh well, it would be thousands, right?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thousands of babies from them.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that at some point wouldn't the same isn't it plausible to think that just like we had potato crop failures from mono crops, like over in Europe, for instance, like it's plausible to think that you are introducing some genetic weakness if the right environmental insult came along.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like it just seems based on history alone, that seems very short-sighted.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I had no idea this is what was happening in the cattle industry.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like once again, it's short-sighted and not looking at any unintended consequences, or they they may maybe they are aware, but it's just you you're doing the passive least resistance.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's what's right in front of you, and it comes, it partly comes down to the bottom dollar.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, yeah, you exactly.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the bottom line is that it is a it is a rapid and and seemingly convenient way to um to make a lot of change quicker.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nature doesn't like a lot of change quicker.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we head down that path, it it's it and you start intervening to this degree uh in the natural process, uh it it creates a dependency then on intervention and artificials in in numerous other areas, you know, down the line.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so so the average farmer looks at me and says, There's no way that but my cows will be healthy if I don't give them vaccines.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I I I have to say, you you're right.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is the conundrum, right?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is that I look at him and say, Yeah, you're right.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because you've been using bulls from a sud station that have been artificially inseminated back to their great-great great great grandmother and and and grandfather, and you've been, you know, using all these, um, you're using chemical fertilizers, you're feeding them, you know, corn, and and and yes, of course they'll get sick if they don't get a but mine don't, and and there are plenty of other farmers whose don't either, but we're but we're not we're not using that industrial protocol.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so in this in this dialogue between this professor and student, the problem is that the the the worlds are so far apart that it's just she is incredulous that he can't see the the um the plausibility or the reasonableness of what I've just said.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he, in his experience, all the animals he's dealing with, they do get sick if they don't get vaccines.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's just it's just a real conundrum.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: But but I I thought it I thought it it's such an interesting conundrum, and it's it's real life practical that I wanted our listeners to kind of get whatever, you know, to to to be able to jump into this real-time, real dialogue that's happening, um, you know, in in numerous locations, places, and and nuances on a day-to-day basis.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And to and to have some, I want our people to be armed with some philosophical ammunition uh to be able to stand, you know, when you know, when somebody says, there's there's no way you can have vaccine-free.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the cattle will die.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and suddenly then those of us who don't vaccinate, we're now put in the in the in the uh bad light because if the assumption is if we don't vaccinate, the cows are going to be sick, then we're put in the light that we don't care, we don't care about health, we don't care about our animals, you know.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, maybe we we don't even we don't even care about the food supply, you know, and and we become bad caretakers because you know, we don't care about the health of our animals.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: When actually we care, we care just I'm not gonna say more, we care just as much about the health of our animals.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: We just view health from a different perspective than somebody who's tied in with Pfizer and Merck.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I think this is such a great example, too, to share, like, because it's really important to I think be aware of what most people think, right?
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: That it it is very different than what we think, and that's okay.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the that professor is speaking his truth, yes, right?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: That that's his truth, absolutely, and that's what he sees in his world, and so of course he's gonna come to that conclusion.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't think he's trying to be like malicious or confrontational with that student.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's literally the world that he lives in.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's and I'm I'm sure he loves cows, yes.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: He loves cows, yes.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, and then the student is speaking from it from their world perspective and a different truth, they just have a different truth.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I and I don't know of any studies that are showing what that uh what the student has been assigned to get.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, I can see why the professor would ask for those studies, given that professor's truth, but there are case studies.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: So your farm is a case study, you know.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: Other friends that you have in this space are case studies, yeah.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, those are those are a valid type of study.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's, I mean, I don't think you have a case study written and published in a scientific journal, but maybe that's an idea, Joel, because that's pretty easy to do.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: But that's what the student can also do if if the student wanted to pursue it, the student can write a case study, you know, or even just present them these farms as case studies.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's valid information because it's real-world, real-time farms that are operating without the antibiotics and without you know the vaccines.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: And people can learn from that.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: People, in my experience, especially professors, they will listen when it's in the literature.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna listen to the famous, renowned Joel Salatin, right?
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're the lunatic farmer.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're generally not gonna take that with the same weight as something that they see in the literature.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I think this is a great like call to action almost that we need to start getting these things in the literature as kind of hypocritical as that sounds, because you know how we feel about the literature, but that's the language that they speak, right?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is the truth in their world.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something that people could be doing.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone listening to this podcast?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they can fund a case study at on your farm.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really not that expensive to do the case study.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like an intervention or a clinical trial, right?
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not that expensive.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: So one can get published and bam, there you go.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's a case study, and that cracks the door open for a lot of these people at academia to see, oh, there is another way, you know, and it's validated because it was peer-reviewed in uh in a reputable scientific journal.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Huh, that's really cool.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, we're actually we're actually uh our farm right now seen as being used for two studies.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one is from a Virginia Tech wildlife major, and they're doing a a Virginia-wide uh gray fox, uh gray fox essay.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's been a lot of studies on red foxes, but not really anything on gray foxes.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh so we're uh she's got uh, I don't know, three three cameras set up here, and uh we're one of her gray fox uh study sites.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: The other one is another professor here uh at Mary Baldwin College, and he's doing a a uh spotted salamander study.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um And and so uh he he did his first um um whatever data collection Saturday actually, and um very excited about what he found.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason they're using the spotted salamander is because it lives a long time.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: These things will live, these things will live for many years.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize these little things live that long, but uh as a as um as an amphibian, it's hard to find little critters like this that will live um like seven, eight years.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they live a long time.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're actually, you'll love this.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're actually they're actually collecting them and putting a die in them so they can when they come and when they come and check every month, they can know whether they've seen this one before or not.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they can they can uh they've got an instrument that can read uh if if they've already counted this one or not.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's pretty it's pretty cool.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite an amazing thing.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, we've worked, we've worked with research people, you know, for years and years and years.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and the the the spotted the spotted salamander one is linked up with a with a cli with the climate change study.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the kind of um it's like a canary in the mine kind of thing, um, as a as a very fragile amphibian, um, and so and long-lived.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that's this is part of a multi-year, you know, long-term thing.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, you'll have to know how they pan out.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: We we've you know, we we've participated in many, many studies over the years, and um, and so yeah, if anybody wants to uh come and do a case study, we're open to it.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, uh, we're out of time, but it's been a um, I hope I hope we didn't gross too many people out with our uh rendition of of uh reproduction in the cattle industry.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um have to put a warning at the front of this one.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, don't let young children listen to this one.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: That may be do you have a community question?
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, this this could really open up a Pandora's box.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what what ramifications does this good discussion have for humans?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we don't want to go there.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we just ought to ask, uh, does the meat you eat uh is is does it come from vaccinated animals?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's a little easier one.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and do you know, you know, do you know?
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but especially you know, when you realize that organics, organics, at least so far, has not taken any position on uh on vaccines.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think people would be surprised if like so if you don't buy your meat from your local farmer where you can just call them up and ask, um, if you're buying it from a grocery store, for instance, you might be surprised if you start calling those companies and asking if they use vaccines.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know I was very surprised when we did a podcast on this several many months ago.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: I started calling around companies and asking.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: Every single organic company I called was using vaccines.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they couldn't tell me what types or how many they were using because they often get the they often have multiple farms that service them, right?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: That provide the meat, for instance, and each one has its own vets and its own you know schedules and uh practices.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's actually surprisingly hard to track down what they're doing, but when if they're being transparent, I think you'll be surprised that may that the majority, if not all of them, are using some sort of vaccination program.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's that's true.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, thanks for joining us on another Beyond Labels uh podcast.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you all for staying with us, and uh, we look forward to visiting with you again next week.