From Rosemary Jones
In your story about the uses of chicken feathers
(This Week, 11 April, p 16),
I noticed the sentence: “At present, the feathers are mostly autoclaved to
produce a low-value feedstuff for poultry and cattle.”
We have already had the scandal of BSE, with cattle fed on infected sheep
remains. Is there a chicken disease that cows could catch as well?
In my innocence, I thought that cows ate grass. Perhaps they are also fed on
minced-up old mattresses, sawdust, sweepings from hairdressers’ floors, old
tyres—anything so that they can be fed as cheaply as possible.
Worthing, West Sussex
