http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FKA/is_3_61/ai_54017841 The "animal protein" in many pet foods is made up of: diseased meat, road kill, contaminated "material" from slaughterhouses, fecal matter, pets which have been euthanized with sodium pentobarbital, chicken and turkey feathers, and the waste from milling room floors.
Sources of these "animal proteins" are diseased, drugged, and euthanized animals (including other cats and dogs). These carcasses go to receiving plants, where the hide (sold to a tannery), skin, fats, and meat are removed. The "meat" from these animals can be sold for pet food (sometimes along with tags and flea collars in place), after being marked as "unfit for human consumption."
If this "meat" arrives at the receiving plant already decomposing, it's sent to a rendering plant, along with road kill. Also "fine" for pet food is condemned material from slaughterhouses -- animals that died on their way to slaughter, diseased animals or parts, diseased blood, hair, hooves and paws, horns, stomach contents, heads, mammary glands, unborn calf carcasses, processed animal waste from the floor of the slaughterhouses along with litter material from the floor, and, again, euthanized companion pets.
And
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=443453&mesg_id=450071... How do you "regulate" ingredients like these?
That these "by-products" were EVER allowed into pet food, is the real problem.
Can they be prohibited now, after all these years?
Can we get the pet food companies to clean up their act and stop poisoning our animals?
:shrug: