More welfare nonsense

[Walterp]

One sunny day I pulled up on a dairy farm yard and saw a pretty sight - nearly two dozen baby bull calves piled up in an untidy heap, awaiting collection after being shot a few hours after birth.

It's a bad sign when even the knackermen are becoming mutinous about it, the practice being both commonplace and indefensible. If you put a cow in calf, you have to rear the calf.

If the knackerman can't justify the alternative, how can the farmer?

It's only a matter of time before there's a TV documentary about it, a public outcry, and a fall in milk consumption.

 

[GTB]

Surely it's viable for someone to rear them if they're available for the price of two tags? I expect the farm in question was under TB restrictions and therefore unable to sell them and had no spare shed space available to rear them perhaps?

 

[Walterp]

Surely it's viable for someone to rear them if they're available for the price of two tags? I expect the farm in question was under TB restrictions and therefore unable to sell them and had no spare shed space available to rear them perhaps?

No TB test requirement under 42 days, at least at present?

It's an easy way out of unwanted calves; until, of course, it becomes public knowledge. Then it is revealed as a bad idea.

 

[GTB]

No TB test requirement under 42 days, at least at present?

But you can't sell calves off the farm if you're under tb restrictions surely?

 

[Bury the Trash]

so do the public actually watch countryfile

 

[Walterp]

But you can't sell calves off the farm if you're under tb restrictions surely?

I think they can go to an isolation rearing unit, at least at present?

 

[GTB]

I think they can go to an isolation rearing unit, at least at present?

Maybe but there aren't many isolation units about and there soon won't be any in Wales I believe.

 

[happycows]

I'm sure Walter if you offer to go in and feed them twice every day for a fortnight until the passport comes and set up a isolation unit the farmer concerned would be delighted if you took them.
I don't think anybody likes shooting them and so glad i've been out of that practise for 10 years now but i must confess to shooting thousands over the years. We had to pay £12 each to get rid of them. But with nobody to buy them under TB restriction and no room what are you to do?? look after what you can the best you can and dispatch the rest as humanely as possible was the only other option.

 

[Dalos]

I dont know of any of my dairy farming friends and aquaintances that shoot bull calves or have done since the foot and mouth era. If you are seeing it in your area Walter then it is sad, it is a practice banded about by anti dairy activists as somthing widespread but in my experience it is a very small minority that do this.
it is not somthing that should have to happen in this day and age as there are people that will buy them at a discount, which is galling in itself when you are already being kicked for the debarcle that is TB.

 

[Walterp]

I'm sure Walter if you offer to go in and feed them twice every day for a fortnight until the passport comes and set up a isolation unit the farmer concerned would be delighted if you took them.
I don't think anybody likes shooting them and so glad i've been out of that practise for 10 years now but i must confess to shooting thousands over the years. We had to pay £12 each to get rid of them. But with nobody to buy them under TB restriction and no room what are you to do?? look after what you can the best you can and dispatch the rest as humanely as possible was the only other option.

In fact I enquired about this, because I too thought that. In fact the farmers are unenthusiastic about selling into isolation units. I was surprised, but there it is. It is, I suppose, too much bother.

Some dairy farmers erect extra rearing sheds to avoid killing these calves, knowing that doing so is fairly marginal. Others find it too much bother.

The general reaction, outside of the farmers concerned, is that of being appalled. When even the knackermen start off on a long complaint about short-sighted, cruel and greedy dairy farmers I tend to think they have a point.

It's merely my opinion, based on what I see about me.

On numbers, I can speak only for some of the bigger units in the area (400 to 2,000 milkers).

 

[Bury the Trash]

depends on the market for vealers

 

[vantage]

I dont know of any of my dairy farming friends and aquaintances that shoot bull calves or have done since the foot and mouth era. If you are seeing it in your area Walter then it is sad, it is a practice banded about by anti dairy activists as somthing widespread but in my experience it is a very small minority that do this.
it is not somthing that should have to happen in this day and age as there are people that will buy them at a discount, which is galling in itself when you are already being kicked for the debarcle that is TB.

With all due respect nobody likes shooting calves but down here in Pembs there are a lot of units under TB restrictions,us included.There is a limit to how many TB calves can be rehomed in the immediate area as WAG will not let them go far,if at all.
Shortly approved finishing units are to cease(October I believe),so there are few options if you are over stocked and under resourced.

 

[vantage]

In fact I enquired about this, because I too thought that. In fact the farmers are unenthusiastic about selling into isolation units. I was surprised, but there it is. It is, I suppose, too much bother.

Some dairy farmers erect extra rearing sheds to avoid killing these calves, knowing that doing so is fairly marginal. Others find it too much bother.

The general reaction, outside of the farmers concerned, is that of being appalled. When even the knackermen start off on a long complaint about short-sighted, cruel and greedy dairy farmers I tend to think they have a point.

It's merely my opinion, based on what I see about me.

On numbers, I can speak only for some of the bigger units in the area (400 to 2,000 milkers).

Please don't start on about anti dairy again MrP

 

[Henarar]

keep breeds that produce calves that have a value as a beef animal
the family milked dairy cows here since the war, never shot a calf

 

[Walterp]

if you are over stocked and under resourced.

I suggest you have answered your own point, right there.

 

[vantage]

I suggest you have answered your own point, right there.

That I as a dairy farmer am insufficiently profitable,or that our farm has TB?

 

[Walterp]

Please don't start on about anti dairy again MrP

It's not easy to follow your reasoning - if it is generally accepted (outside dairy farming circles) that killing baby bull calves is unacceptable, that's not anti-dairy farming.

Isn't it merely anti cruelty?

 

[Walterp]

That I as a dairy farmer am insufficiently profitable,or that our farm has TB?

The description you used was 'over-stocked'.

None of us are sufficiently profitable, plenty of us are under TB restriction.

 

[DrWazzock]

Isn't the dairyman also a victim of the system? Pushed to provide milk for the lowest price in the greatest quantity, using genetics that suit milk production but are rubbish for fattening. We used to rear and fatten many Hereford cross Friesians but when the Holstein breed was introduced into local dairy farms it ruined the job. We couldn't fatten them economically and as a matter of fact the dairy farms have also gone as well due to overproduction of milk. That's the benefit of progress of technology generating all that economic growth that we need, isn't it? It will win through and make us all better off in the end, they say, that's as long as we can stomach the brutality of it in human and animal terms. Good old free markets, technological progress and capitalism, eh?

Don't blame the dairyman. Blame the man or woman who wants "cheap" milk.

 

[vantage]

It's not easy to follow your reasoning - if it is generally accepted (outside dairy farming circles) that killing baby bull calves is unacceptable, that's not anti-dairy farming.

Isn't it merely anti cruelty?

Yes it is unacceptable,but with TB ,there are no options.