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Hauliers taking TB cattle away for slaughter must be subject to the same application of the rules as farmers, says Chris Rundle
Getting pulled over and having inspectors crawl all over your vehicle, stock and paperwork is one of the regular hazards farmers are subjected to when they transport animals to and from market these days.
Not, of course, that it does to remonstrate too loudly with Trading Standards and Animal and Plant Health Agency officials about the inconvenience and loss of valuable time involved: after all they can make life rather difficult should they so wish.
But farmers are beginning to question why the regulations governing the transport of live animals aren't being equitably applied, specifically to the collection of TB reactors by hauliers.
Because disturbing reports are now emerging of how Defra's drive to save money clearing up the mess TB is causing is now allegedly impinging on animal welfare.
Hauliers are only paid for the work once they have an animal on board and start clocking up the miles, so the usual ruse is to pick up a registered reactor from a farm as close to their home as possible. This will then be used as a Judas cow to help load others into the lorry during the course of the day, but will remain on board until the entire collection round is complete.
This can lead, in some circumstances, to an animal from Somerset being driven to the far west of Cornwall before being driven all the way back to a slaughterhouse. And because Defra has no contract with any one abattoir but merely uses them on the basis of the best daily price offered that could even be somewhere in Wales.
Conditions on board the lorries are frequently horrific. In a recent case, say campaigners, no internal gates were used to separate the animals so the original Judas cow was crushed and died. By the time the abattoir was reached three other cows which had been standing on the corpse for part of the journey were so distressed they had to be shot in the lorry.
We have, of course, been here before. A couple of years ago another obscene waste of taxpayers' money as well as disturbing welfare implications were highlighted with the case of dairy cattle from Dorset which passed within a dozen miles of a Somerset slaughterhouse en route to another in North Wales for the sake of an extra two pence a kilo.
Last month a similar incident happened in Leicestershire, where dairy cattle milked in the morning were not collected until early afternoon and thus were not milked that night or the next morning before being delivered to an abattoir in Cross Hands, South Wales.
What with reports of reactor cows being transported just seven days after giving birth farmers are beginning to wonder whether there is one set of rules for them and another governing the activities of APHA and Defra, whose property the cattle become as soon as they are in the trucks – and what role the usually zealous Trading Standards departments are playing in all this.
One person intends to find out: Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger, whose Bridgwater and West Somerset constituency is home to Sedgemoor Auction Centre, one of the largest livestock markets in the country, is urging Defra Secretary Liz Truss to investigate what's been going on under the radar.
"If these reports are accurate then there have been some monstrous breaches of animal welfare regulations which, had they been committed by farmers, would have seen people in the dock," he said.
Credit : http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/...tory-26752335-detail/story.html#ixzz3dxr2YCXd
Getting pulled over and having inspectors crawl all over your vehicle, stock and paperwork is one of the regular hazards farmers are subjected to when they transport animals to and from market these days.
Not, of course, that it does to remonstrate too loudly with Trading Standards and Animal and Plant Health Agency officials about the inconvenience and loss of valuable time involved: after all they can make life rather difficult should they so wish.
But farmers are beginning to question why the regulations governing the transport of live animals aren't being equitably applied, specifically to the collection of TB reactors by hauliers.
Because disturbing reports are now emerging of how Defra's drive to save money clearing up the mess TB is causing is now allegedly impinging on animal welfare.
Hauliers are only paid for the work once they have an animal on board and start clocking up the miles, so the usual ruse is to pick up a registered reactor from a farm as close to their home as possible. This will then be used as a Judas cow to help load others into the lorry during the course of the day, but will remain on board until the entire collection round is complete.
This can lead, in some circumstances, to an animal from Somerset being driven to the far west of Cornwall before being driven all the way back to a slaughterhouse. And because Defra has no contract with any one abattoir but merely uses them on the basis of the best daily price offered that could even be somewhere in Wales.
Conditions on board the lorries are frequently horrific. In a recent case, say campaigners, no internal gates were used to separate the animals so the original Judas cow was crushed and died. By the time the abattoir was reached three other cows which had been standing on the corpse for part of the journey were so distressed they had to be shot in the lorry.
We have, of course, been here before. A couple of years ago another obscene waste of taxpayers' money as well as disturbing welfare implications were highlighted with the case of dairy cattle from Dorset which passed within a dozen miles of a Somerset slaughterhouse en route to another in North Wales for the sake of an extra two pence a kilo.
Last month a similar incident happened in Leicestershire, where dairy cattle milked in the morning were not collected until early afternoon and thus were not milked that night or the next morning before being delivered to an abattoir in Cross Hands, South Wales.
What with reports of reactor cows being transported just seven days after giving birth farmers are beginning to wonder whether there is one set of rules for them and another governing the activities of APHA and Defra, whose property the cattle become as soon as they are in the trucks – and what role the usually zealous Trading Standards departments are playing in all this.
One person intends to find out: Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger, whose Bridgwater and West Somerset constituency is home to Sedgemoor Auction Centre, one of the largest livestock markets in the country, is urging Defra Secretary Liz Truss to investigate what's been going on under the radar.
"If these reports are accurate then there have been some monstrous breaches of animal welfare regulations which, had they been committed by farmers, would have seen people in the dock," he said.
Credit : http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/...tory-26752335-detail/story.html#ixzz3dxr2YCXd
now we go to the next nearest one