Author Information
The Lie In Lieninger of Buckeye Egg Farm
The Lie In Lieninger
14 million Ohio chickens at Buckeye Egg Farm's Cruel
Auschwitzes are being given cattle
parts. Some factory farms feed feathers of their
slaughtered sisters back to chickens, as well as
their own waste, mixed with grain and marketed as 'weastelage'. Leininger, Buckeye CEO, is incorrect in saying
chickens cannot get Mad Chicken from Mad Cow. Bovine spongiform
encephalopathy prions go from species to species.
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http://www.mad-cow.org http://www.madcowboy.com
http://www.madeer.org
Beleaguered megafarm says its chicken feed follows rules
05/31/03
Casey Laughman
Associated Press
Columbus- The state's largest egg producer has met the requirements
of federal inspectors who said the company needed to change the way
it handled and labeled chicken feed and has not been penalized,
Buckeye Egg Farm's chief operating officer said yesterday.
The megafarm was sent a warning letter by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration in March that detailed "significant deviations" from
the department's guidelines for feed production.
William Leininger, the company's CEO, said the company
received "merely a warning letter."
Leininger said the company has responded to the letter and is now in
compliance with the regulations.
Owner Anton Pohlmann is trying to sell the company under threat of
being shut down by the state for a history of environmental problems,
including swarms of insects, clouds of manure dust and water
contamination.
The Buckeye Egg operation has about 9.75 million laying hens and
facilities in Licking, Hardin and Wyandot counties. The company is
the country's fourth-largest egg producer and produced about 2.7
billion eggs last year.
Ohio Environmental Council spokeswoman Susan Studer King said the
company markets under dozens of brand names and that consumers can't
be sure which brands might be from the company.
A message was left for the FDA's Cincinnati District Office.
After an inspection of Buckeye Egg's feed mill in Croton, about 23
miles northeast of Columbus, the FDA said the procedures for handling
and labeling chicken feed needed to be changed.
It said the megafarm was not properly recording the amount of
antibiotics it used in its feed and did not properly label feed that
could contain cattle parts. Cattle cannot be given feed that contains
cattle parts due to the possibility of mad cow disease being
transmitted.
Leininger said the feed is used solely for chickens, which cannot
contract mad cow disease. He said the company did comply with the
FDA's requirements and now labels its feed with a warning against
giving it to cattle.
The company was also told it was failing to carefully measure and
monitor the amount of antibiotics it put in its feed. If the dosage
was too high, the risk of egg consumers being exposed to antibiotics
unfit for human consumption and of developing medication-resistant
strains of salmonella increases, according to environmental,
agricultural and food-safety officials.
Leininger said the antibiotics warning was due to the way the company
measured the amounts it puts in the feed. He said that the department
told the company to start recording the actual amount of antibiotics
used, instead of the amount the company expected to use.
"At no time was the general public ever at risk," Leininger said.
That's not good enough, said King. She said the Environmental Council
feels the company should be closed down after repeated violations.
"They've been given every last chance there is," King said.
