Buffed Cows

UNITED KINGDOM- Meet the Super Cow. Literally. These cows are packed with tonnes of muscles on them that one were to think they we given steriods as to how humans consume them to gain muscles. All these presumptions are defeated against the power of technolgy. Selective breeding that is. It is how science is used to control nature to produce desirable characteristics of the cow. Farmers in England have controlled the selective breeding of the cows since 1800s.

Modern breeds of Belgian Blue cattle are the creation of genetic engineering conducted by Professor Hanset at an AI Center in Begium (Oklahoma state website), with the specific goal of expanding the muscular content of the animals as much as possible.

The Super Cow, or Belgian Blue Cattle, are a beef breed for Belgium.Their sculpted appearance is known as "muscle doubling" and they are all natural. The Belgian Blue has a natural mutation of the gene that codes for myostatin, a gene that counteracts for muscle growth. The truncated myostatin is unable to function in this capacity, resulting in accelerated lean muscle growth. This mutation interferes with fat disposition, resulting in leaner meat.This, however, causes extreme over-development of muscle in the cattle, which provides great benefits to producers and consumers, but causes harm to the animals.

There are many advantages to raising the Belgian Blue breed of cattle. First, because of the increased size of the cattle, "double-muscled carcasses have significantly increased muscle mass expressed as retail product yield and produce a leaner product". This is a benefit to the producer, who will make a larger profit in sales, and a benefit to the consumer who will gladly buy this leaner, and therefore healthier, product.

                                        

However, these cattle are susceptible to many medical complications. Some problems attributed to the Blue Belgium's highly-muscular physique involve macroglossia, which causes a swelling of the tongue that may also interfere with a calf's ability to nurse and cause premature death; congenital articular rigidity, a chronic ailment that affects a calf's ability to stand on its legs, also affecting its ability to nurse; cardio-respiratory problems which can cause death in calves within two days of birth, due to insufficient oxygen intake; and dystocia which is a general term for birthing complications. Dystocia is the most common medical complication, and although "factors affecting dystocia are similar in double-muscled cattle to those in non-double-muscled cattle [...] the occurrence of dystocia is greatly increased in double-muscled cows" (Fiems, Campeneere, Caelenbergh, and Boucque). These birthing complications necessitate operative assistance, specifically caesarian sections, which occur in double-muscled cattle as often as 89.5 percent of the time.

Scientists use animals as instruments to meet their goals, but have little thought as to the resulting harm to the animals in the process. Their creations have produced pigs so unhealthy they have no desire to proliferate, and cattle which have the potential of being mortally harmed each time they give birth.

This need to undergo constant operations is a topic highly open to ethical criticism. These animals have been bred for specific characteristics which include the inability to safely give birth to healthy offspring. So, in a sense, unhealthy and unnatural breeds are being created for the benefit of commercial producers, with no thought to the discomfort and pain of the animals. It is assumed that "caesareans cause a lot of suffering to the animals, but also that their high incidence is an indication of the excessive instrumentalisation of these animals"


Super Cow