During the Great Depression, why did the government buy and kill the starving cattle?

Question

During the Great Depression, the federal government began to buy and kill thousands of starving cattle. (Around fall of 1934). Does anyone know why they did so? Did they have a reason for killing the cattle?

Answer 1

First of all the government did buy cattle, some of which were destroyed, some of which were sent off to slaughter to be canned and distrubuted. The cattle were bought because of their extremely poor condition, due to lack of moisture and therefore lack of proper grass for grazing. The Dust Bowl has taken over in much of western Kansas, Oklahoma and parts of Texas, other places were lacking sufficient rainfall as well. It was a relief measure as much as anything, to pay ranchers for beef that had little value, put some money into their pockets and to help them keep going. Similar relief measures were given to grain producers, other men were put to work building roads, bridges and public buildings and the list goes on and on of the projects the federal government created to provide work and to put some money into circulation in the economy.

Others answering this question have talked about anthrax and hoof and mouth desiase. If a herd is desiased today, the government would do exactly the same thing...dig a ditch, destroy the animals and bury or burn the carcasses. We haven't had any outbreaks of hoof and mouth in this country yet, thankfully.

Answer 2

This had nothing to do with sickness in the herd. Healthy cattle, sheep, and pigs by the millions were slaughtered and buried in mass graves. The government tried manipulating the supply of some commodities, in this case livestock, who had seen their prices drop dramatically. They may have helped farmers temporarily by causing prices to go up, but that was at the expense of millions who could hardly afford to eat. Classic redistribution of wealth. This also occurred at least a year or two BEFORE the Dust Bowl.

Answer 3

Don't listen to the guy above me, as he's mistaking the govt. for the banks. During the Depression, it was the banks who had loaned money to all these private farms that repossessed their land when they couldn't pay. The govt. bought and butchered the cattle to HELP the farmers. No one could afford to buy the meat, the cattle were going to die, so the govt. took them off their hands. By this point most of the cattle were too diseased or malnourished to provide proper food anyways.

It's not really any different than the govt. paying farmers to NOT produce food today (IE. Subsidies).

Answer 4

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Answer 5

I think it was a terrable thing to shoot those poor animals. It reminds me of what Hitler did to the Jews. Holes were dug and the Jewish people ran in them and were shot.
A documentary was made by Ken Burns and the people who were children then spoke about seeing the cattle in the holes and being shot and how they remember it till this day. What an affect it had on them.

Answer 6

I know that was when they had the hoof & mouth & anthrax scares here... the government slaughtered our cattle, but sure as hell didn't pay for them. My dad told me about the government coming out & bulldozing these deep trenches, herding our cattle down in them & shooting them. Seems someone in the county had a cow with anthrax, so they killed 1000s of healthy cattle. Some of these gravesites may contain anthrax, but I suspect not.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

It was an attempt to create less of a supply so the demand would drive the prices for beef up which in turn would help the cattle farmers.

Chow!!

Answer 9

Anthrax was around. The fellas up there who listened to gramps didn't listen to the lectures not so many years back about aerosolizing it? Yes there is stuff buried in ditches that we don't want dug up.

Answer 10

So the people couldn't butcher them, and have what little meat there is. I mean look at it, they bought or repoed most of the land and houses, and the people wentwith out....it was a thing so they could get more money.