Pets Are Family Too

Just what we need at a time when we are scrambling to find safe food for our dogs and cats, contaminated people food! Yes, the pet food recall has expanded to food animals for human consumption!

American Hog Farm in Ceres, Ca. was quarantined after melamine, the pet food contaminate , was found in the urine of it’s stock. Tests of seven urine samples and feed, came back positive for melamine, which is the main toxin found in the contaminated pet food that has killed hundreds of pets and been recalled from store shelves.

The problem is, that American Hog Farms sells animals to meat-processing plants and other hog farms. A meat-processing plant, that have not been named, with wider distribution is said to have some of American Hog Farms hogs, but “some official” from the company says that none of that meat is in public distribution?!

Melamine is a plastic used in making kitchenware, floor tiles, fire retardant fabrics, laminates and other commercial everyday products. When melamine is eaten by pets, it causes kidney problem that often lead to their death. So far, we do not know, or have not been told, what happens to humans if eaten.

Three live pigs were taken for testing, and inspectors are rounding up an undetermined number of live hogs sold from the 1,500-animal farm since April 3. So far, the state has 26 recovered pigs at a Northern California facility, officials said.

American Hog Farm also operates as a “custom slaughterhouse,” one of 40 such state licensed facilities in California that butcher animals for individual orders, Dr. Richard Breitmeyer, state veterinarian, said. The meat was not intended for resale and was stamped “not for sale,” so the pork would not be available at commercial outlets, he said.

“The risk to people right now is minimal,” Breitmeyer said.
Thursday, April 19, 2007, California’s Department of Food and Agriculture quarantined American Hog Farm, after records from Diamond Pet Food’s Lathrop facility showed it had sold salvage pet food to the farm for pig feed this month. Those shipments from Diamond, which makes products under the Natural Balance brand, were found to have melamine, traced to rice protein concentrate imported from China.

Still, the state was asking customers who bought nearly 100 pigs from the slaughterhouse since April 3 not to eat the products as a precaution.

Got to keep an eye on this one!