GNRH and Lutalyse

[Guest guest]

I'm sure Cheyenne and others don't intend to paint all conventional farmers with one paint brush. If a non-certified-organic farmer is farming responsibly by organic principles but simply has not gone to the effort and cost to get certified, I know that I, for one, would feel he is one of us, striving for the same cause, producing the same product, just without the paper trail and audit to prove it. Salatin of Polyface farm is a prime example of this type of organic-yet-not-certified farmer.

The disgraceful and unethical actions that Cheyenne is referring to is when a conventional fellow tries to green wash his product by playing on the ignorance of the consumer.

GNRH and Lutalyse are two powerful reproductive hormones that are in extremely common use in conventional dairy. Lutalyse is so powerful an estrus stimulant that If a dairyman by mistake injects a pregnant cow with as little as 5ml, she will abort her calf and be in estrus within 72 hrs even if she had been far along in her pregnancy. In a common ovulation synchronization program a cow who is not pregnant will receive up to four hormone shots for every time she is bred.

How do I know ? I farmed for more than 15 years as a conventional dairyman. Believe me its true. Probably 80-85% of conventional cows are managed this way. Yet their milk may be sold as hormone free.

I know a conventional dairyman who is direct marketing his milk as "Hormone Free" because he do not use Monsanto's rBGH (recumbent Bovine Growth Hormone). When I asked this fellow if he uses the reproductive hormones GNRH and Lutalyse , he admitted that "yes, he still does use those."

So to the consumer,

What does hormone free mean? It usually means the milk is free from the one hormone that you are educated enough to ask about, rBGH or rBST. The ones you don't know about,?.... they only hope you don't find out about.

If your farmer is not certified organic, you better ask him point blank if he is using the reproductive hormones GNRH & Lutalyse.

Keep your eyes open!

Edwin Shank

Shankstead EcoFarmHome of The Family Cow LLC 3854 Olde Scotland RoadChambersburg PA 17202