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Show Shipping Losses To Ik Studied Los Angeles, December 30, 1935 Ways and means of cutting down the tremendous annual loss, estimated at forty million dollars, sustained by the livestock industry indus-try through preventable bruises was discussed at the annual meeting meet-ing in Chicago of the National Livestock Loss Prevention board, I of which the writer is a director, j The membership is made up of 1 representatives of the railroads, I trucking companies, packers, I growers and feeders of livestock, stock yard companies, livestock ' exchanges, insurance and finance companies. The matter of loss through bruises is largely preventable I through education, by pointing j out wrong practices and showing i better ways of handling livestock, ! particularly in loading, unloading and shipping. Funds for research and educational work are obtained by voluntary action. I consider this work of immense economic importance in saving this gigantic I leak in our livestock business. I Many illustrations were cited j where livestock of different species were loaded for transportation trans-portation without regard to the probable injury or mortality due to inherent vices. For example, a "tusky" stag loaded with calves, sheep and cattle, cat-tle, without proper separation, resulted re-sulted in several calves and sheep ! being killed, the legs of the cattle cat-tle badly lacerated before the shipment reached destination. The j least valuable animal in the load j often does the damage. Here the j fault was the owners. He failer take ordinary precaution to protect pro-tect his property. Certainly if the owner himself does not show an interest in getting his livestock started right for a safe journey, how could we evpect someone else without any financial interest to do the job ? It would have been a simple matter to separate the different dif-ferent kinds of animals before starting the shipment to market. Many other cases were discus- sed in the movement from ranch to market and through the market mar-ket to slaughtering plants. A heavy instrument used in loading or driving livestock will show us ! as a costly blemish in the meat, decreasing its selling value ac- ordin -ly. ! At central markets tho clo".e--t j possible supervision is had to prevent pre-vent damare from any omiso. It iva'-cs no difference whether t'ie : """Hint of the loss is sustained bv the packer and escaped by the grower the fact remains that it is an nronomic loss to tho people, hence we are interested in preventative pre-ventative methods. A committee from the national organization will hold an open meeting at the Los Angeles Union j stock yards on January 7th to see what we are doing out west to boh) save the industry from the terrific annualloss it is now sustaining, sus-taining, and to organize to salvage sal-vage this great burden by proper organization for supervision to prevent it. |