Few farmers killing calves rather than upgrading or building loading pens

A minority of dairy farmers are choosing to kill unwanted bobby calves on farms themselves rather than meet new rules to house and load them alive before their collection. By: GERALD PIDDOCK
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The carcasses of the animals are then picked up by tannery companies whereas live calves are transported to meat processing companies or calf growers.
Killing healthy male bobby calves is legal under the Animal Welfare Act, which highlights the guidelines for the humane slaughter of livestock.
Under the legislation, when calves are killed, they must be rendered immediately insensible and remain in that state until death is confirmed. The person responsible for their destruction must be properly trained and calves cannot be killed by «blunt force trauma» caused by a blow to the head, except in unexpected situations.
DairyNZ animal behaviour and welfare specialist Dr Jenny Jago said nationally about 3 per cent of farmers had chosen to euthanise their surplus calves and DairyNZ would be monitoring this to see if it that changed.
Most farmers who had built or had altered their calf loading facilities to comply with the new rules found it relatively straightforward and not cost prohibitive, Jago said.
Federated Farmers dairy chairman Chris Lewis said whether a law change was needed to make it illegal for farmers to kill healthy bobby calves was an industry debate that had to happen.
«It’s been talked about at the highest level.»
That had to include discussions around industry perception and reputation.
«It is an industry debate going on and it is around animal welfare practices. It’s something we need to get on top of ASAP.»
New regulations around calf welfare are due to come into effect on Tuesday and include the need for adequate loading and unloading facilities and shelter requirements before and during transport.
The maximum time off feed before slaughter was now 24 hours.
All calves which are dead on arrival, condemned on arrival, dead in yard or condemned in yard will have autopsies carried out to find the cause of death.
The Ministry for Primary Industries said, in a statement, its focus was on ensuring that calf disposal was done in the most humane way possible.
«The primary aim for the farmer must be to bring about death swiftly, with minimum pain, suffering and distress for the animal. We know that most farmers who need to do this, do it correctly and humanely.
«Farmers can either send their bobby calves to processing plants, or carry out on-farm killing for ‘slink’ skin collection. More than half of the calves born on dairy farms are reared as dairy heifers, breeding bulls or for beef.»
Lewis said he knew of some farmers who had tried shooting calves but soon stopped because of its impact on their mental health.
«What people have said to me in the past is that they shoot calves for a couple of days and then they get sick of it and realise mentally, it’s not an easy thing to do.»
It posed a different mindset to disposing of a sick calf because mentally it was easier to justify.
He believed it was a small minority of farmers who followed this practice. While many had grumbled about regulations requiring changes to bobby calf loading facilities, the vast majority of farmers had made the necessary upgrades to comply with the law.
«In reality, it doesn’t happen that much. The amount of bobby calf pens I have seen driving around the road, everyone’s towed the line in the end.»
Lewis said he spent $2000 on his own pen, but it more than paid for itself with the income received from his supplier for those calves.
«Part of milking cows is having calves and treating all of your animals with respect and part and parcel of having a cow calve to produce milk is to produce income is to produce a calf.»
Source: Stuff
Link: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/95140436/few-farmers-killing-calves-rather-than-upgrading-or-building-loading-pens

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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