Food and Drug Administration officials announced Friday they had determined a California hog farm's feed was tainted by the same chemical found in more than 100 recently-recalled brands of pet food, reported Reuters.
Officials said they had found the chemical melamine in the feed, which they had earlier determined had caused liver failure in some cats and dogs who consumed pet food tainted by the chemical. Investigators determined the hogs were contaminated by the feed after detecting the chemical's presence in the hogs' urine.
The farm's owners slaughtered 126 hogs after beginning use of the contaminated feed, but U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said they don't believe any of the farm's products entered the food supply, Reuters reported.
The farm bought the contaminated feed from American Hog Co. The company said it used scrap pet food from Diamond Pet Foods in its products. Diamond Pet Foods used rice protein concentrate, one of the products thought to contain melamine, in its food products, according to Reuters.
The veterinary organization Veterinary Information Network claimed 104 cats and dogs died of liver failure by late March as a result of contamination. Menu Foods, the company that manufactured a majority of the recalled food brands, disputed this, claiming only 16 pets died, according to the Associated Press.
