Horrible Hormones
The Horrible Hormones I live on a small farm at the top of a mountain. At the bottom of the long gravel driveway is a two story tan house with a red door and shutters. Behind the house is the barn. The barn is a baby blue, two stall barn where the horses stay and where we store hay for our animals. There are two fairly large pastures connected to the barn that the animals can graze on. If you walk past the barn to the wood line you will find a small hutch with a handful of pigs. Just past the pigs is a small shed. In the shed you can find hens roosting in their laying boxes or roaming the yard eating grass and bugs they find. Across the driveway from the house is a large field that is pastured into two fields. In one of those fields, during certain times of the year, you can find a steer grazing. My family raises our own animals for slaughter for ourselves. We raise beef, swine, and chickens. All of the animals we raise are raised without the use of extra hormones. I know from experience that animals that are raised without hormone additives taste better than animals that were grown with them. Animals that were given growth hormones are often more bland and less flavorful and the meat is more stringy and less tender. When you use growth hormones you pay less on feed because the animal grows very quickly; however, you have to pay for the different hormones and steroids that you are giving the animal. Another reason my family won’t use hormones is they often cause complications for the animal. For example, a growth hormone for pigs, paylean, often causes the joints to stiffen and the pig to lose some of its fluid mobility because the meat is growing faster than the skeleton of the pig is.
The use of growth hormones in meat and milk production has become a huge controversy. The main reason producers use growth hormones is to boost production and make more money faster. There are two types of steroids; natural and synthetic. Natural hormones are hormones that
The use of growth hormones in meat and milk production has become a huge controversy. The main reason producers use growth hormones is to boost production and make more money faster. There are two types of steroids; natural and synthetic. Natural hormones are hormones that