Live exports

Sheepdish1

As farmers do you agree or disagree with live exports of calves?

Surely this isn’t a cost effective way to transport cattle but there are also animal welfare concerns
while they are in transport and when they arrive to their destination.

They must be under huge stress being transported on vessels to other countries that are significantly far away hence long journey times. It just doesn’t seem ethical.

djmc

I was going to write a blog about this and the whole vegan and animal rights movement. As everyone has an opinion of how we should be running our farms.
The shipping is not an easy one as when I was running my dairy farm I would feed a male jersey bull calves for a few weeks and sell them a loss at the mart where they were probably bought for export.
As there is no market for veal in this country and lads cant afford to keep that many pets or rear them at a loss
If the shipping goes without a veal market then the only options left are to shoot the calves at birth or give up dairy farming.

_Brian

Sadly it’s the best of a short list of options.
I doubt much will happen unless there is an end to shipping them.

Even larger animals it’s not ideal at all.

There are varying opinions but I would think it’s not something that has many years left.

alps

It's not very expensive on a per calf basis compared to large animals, but the companies will only carry good calves.

I've been on ferries to France and I've seen these calves as needed to go down on deck for other reasons, and the calves travel very well.

Calves don't suffer from travel or sea sickness like humans or dogs would, so to be parked up on a ferry is really like being stopped. The deck is above the water line and is completely open to the air on both sides of the ship as well as huge ventilation fans at the back in case the air is too calm.

If there was any deterioration in calf health on the journey, the buyers would not continue to buy.

patsy_mccabe

I have no problem with live exports, provided it's done right. There is no benefit to anyone to mistreat the animals and those that do, should be dealt with accordingly.
What I do have serious problems with, are those that misreport and sensationalise the practice, showing footage of individual animals either being sick or mistreated and reporting it as indicative of the industry overall. Calves will get sick and calves will die. That's nature.

wrangler

alps wrote: »

It's not very expensive on a per calf basis compared to large animals, but the companies will only carry good calves.

I've been on ferries to France and I've seen these calves as needed to go down on deck for other reasons, and the calves travel very well.

Calves don't suffer from travel or sea sickness like humans or dogs would, so to be parked up on a ferry is really like being stopped. The deck is above the water line and is completely open to the air on both sides of the ship as well as huge ventilation fans at the back in case the air is too calm.

If there was any deterioration in calf health on the journey, the buyers would not continue to buy.

Provided a calf has milk and somewhere warm to lie down, I don't think they care where they are.
Same as pet lambs

Buford T. Justice XIX

Sheepdish1 wrote: »

As farmers do you agree or disagree with live exports of calves?

Surely this isn’t a cost effective way to transport cattle but there are also animal welfare concerns
while they are in transport and when they arrive to their destination.

They must be under huge stress being transported on vessels to other countries that are significantly far away hence long journey times. It just doesn’t seem ethical.

Agree totally with live exports. The research in the area shows quite clearly that the animals suffer more stress when going to the mart or when being tested in their pen that the animals display during live export.

The animal welfare concerns you mention are definitely an issue but that issue is a problem at destination rather than source. The recent video from France was shocking and more so because it is so uncommon as to be remarkable.

The general public wants cheap food but there's always a cost for cheap food. The margins in Agriculture are wafer thin and that leads to the hiring and retaining of unsuitable workers due to the poor pay, hours and conditions. I doubt any self respecting farmer would retain that individual in that position but I'm in no doubt there's plenty more dodgy characters out there. They should be dealt with to the fullest extent of the pertaining laws.

There's little to no training offered to most of those workers, again due to the small margins that are available. They would be expected to pick up whatever knowledge they need while working but that method of training is showing up as deficient.
When the most of the workforce was from an agricultural background, most would have a good basic knowledge of handling and feeding calves and general livestock and would be able to translate a lot of their existing knowledge to different livestock groups and ages.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, most of the Agricultural background workforce have move with their skills to better paying jobs and those left are, in part, unsuitable for the positions they find themselves in.

On journey times, there's very restrictive legislation pertaining to transport of those calves with rigorously enforced rest periods from transport and set feeding times for them. They show more stress being loaded and unloaded than they do during transport. Calves naturally spend most of their time lying down anyway and will be perfectly content during transport once they have a dry bed of straw under them and being adequately fed.

Base price

DAFM have introduced additional measures for the export of bull calves from Ireland -
https://www.farmersjournal.ie/department-tightens-oversight-of-calf-exports-513939

Birdnuts

I think more Irish Vetinary/inspector presence along the way would re-assure more people on this matter, especially when it comes to slaughter facilities outside the EU

alps

Birdnuts wrote: »

I think more Irish Vetinary/inspector presence along the way would re-assure more people on this matter, especially when it comes to slaughter facilities outside the EU

That'd be one cushy job...

Birdnuts

alps wrote: »

That'd be one cushy job...

I for one excel at such things;) - in related news I got the tale end of a speech by Boris Johnstone today as reported on Al Jaazera in the past hour, the quote went as follows "leaving the EU will allow us end live exports and vat on Tampons" = WTF??

Odelay

Birdnuts wrote: »

I for one excel at such things;) - in related news I got the tale end of a speech by Boris Johnstone today as reported on Al Jaazera in the past hour, the quote went as follows "leaving the EU will allow us end live exports and vat on Tampons" = WTF??

The lad is a complete moron. There is nothings stopping them doing that now. Election silly season.

Sheepdish1

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

Agree totally with live exports. The research in the area shows quite clearly that the animals suffer more stress when going to the mart or when being tested in their pen that the animals display during live export.

The animal welfare concerns you mention are definitely an issue but that issue is a problem at destination rather than source. The recent video from France was shocking and more so because it is so uncommon as to be remarkable.

The general public wants cheap food but there's always a cost for cheap food. The margins in Agriculture are wafer thin and that leads to the hiring and retaining of unsuitable workers due to the poor pay, hours and conditions. I doubt any self respecting farmer would retain that individual in that position but I'm in no doubt there's plenty more dodgy characters out there. They should be dealt with to the fullest extent of the pertaining laws.

There's little to no training offered to most of those workers, again due to the small margins that are available. They would be expected to pick up whatever knowledge they need while working but that method of training is showing up as deficient.
When the most of the workforce was from an agricultural background, most would have a good basic knowledge of handling and feeding calves and general livestock and would be able to translate a lot of their existing knowledge to different livestock groups and ages.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, most of the Agricultural background workforce have move with their skills to better paying jobs and those left are, in part, unsuitable for the positions they find themselves in.

On journey times, there's very restrictive legislation pertaining to transport of those calves with rigorously enforced rest periods from transport and set feeding times for them. They show more stress being loaded and unloaded than they do during transport. Calves naturally spend most of their time lying down anyway and will be perfectly content during transport once they have a dry bed of straw under them and being adequately fed.

Do you really think this video is an isolated incident and not regular? Perhaps in France however we have no idea how poor the animal welfare is in Turkey or Libya for example.

In terms of transport are these rigorous regulations adhered to once they have left Ireland? I understand where you are coming from in terms of stress however being on a huge shipping container for up to 9 days surely can’t be good for their stress levels.

I agree that if Irish veterinarians were accompanying the animals people would feel more at ease however this isn’t the case so it’s hard to know what the conditions are like on the ships. Of course some calves with naturally die to natural causes however I feel they would be much better under the close eye of farmer as opposed to being one of thousands on a ship.

My biggest issue with it is where they end up and how they are treated there. Cattle are looked after very well in our country and I’m surprised they are being shipped to countries which do not have the same animal welfare standards as we do.

Sheepdish1

djmc wrote: »

I was going to write a blog about this and the whole vegan and animal rights movement. As everyone has an opinion of how we should be running our farms.
The shipping is not an easy one as when I was running my dairy farm I would feed a male jersey bull calves for a few weeks and sell them a loss at the mart where they were probably bought for export.
As there is no market for veal in this country and lads cant afford to keep that many pets or rear them at a loss
If the shipping goes without a veal market then the only options left are to shoot the calves at birth or give up dairy farming.

Thanks for responding to my question. I understand the predicament with male dairy calves in the dairy industry. It’s a difficult situation and I don’t know what the solution is.

Sheepdish1

alps wrote: »

It's not very expensive on a per calf basis compared to large animals, but the companies will only carry good calves.

I've been on ferries to France and I've seen these calves as needed to go down on deck for other reasons, and the calves travel very well.

Calves don't suffer from travel or sea sickness like humans or dogs would, so to be parked up on a ferry is really like being stopped. The deck is above the water line and is completely open to the air on both sides of the ship as well as huge ventilation fans at the back in case the air is too calm.

If there was any deterioration in calf health on the journey, the buyers would not continue to buy.

Thank you. What about countries outside of the EU? That’s reassuring that they don’t feel sea sick like humans do. Where they calm on the boat or where they stressed. Was there a vet to euthanise if needed ?

alps

Sheepdish1 wrote: »

Thank you. What about countries outside of the EU? That’s reassuring that they don’t feel sea sick like humans do. Where they calm on the boat or where they stressed. Was there a vet to euthanise if needed ?

There's no stress on the ferry. Stress factors would only arise from non ferry issues like hunger, heat, air dry lie etc, which are all very controllable..

Drivers are accompanied by ferry staff every 4 hours to check on the stock. I expect that there is a competent person on board with the responsibility for animals in trouble, but I honestly can't say.

Calves, afaik, only go to European countries, namely Netherland and Spain, however the calves going to Spain are older and stronger than the Dutch ones.

Cattle going to Turkey go on a special cattle boat, not containers, that is really like a multi level cattle shed. For the cattle it would be little different from being in a slatted house., however diet is mainly hay and ration. Cattle should be trained into this diet for a number of weeks before travelling and they continue to gain weight while travelling, which is a great sign of diet and care. Small bales of hay are used as feeding channels would not take machinery as you can imagine, so there is a massive amount of manual work involved in feeding so many cattle.

I know the Irish companies servicing these sales send staff to meet the cattle on the other side and oversee their transport and subsequent housing and diet set up in Turkey. They are gobsmacked at how cheap fodder and cereals are to access all around that part of the world( typically half of what it would cost us) which is probably part of the reason why there is an economic benefit in finishing the cattle there..

epfff

Sheepdish1 wrote: »

Thank you. What about countries outside of the EU? That’s reassuring that they don’t feel sea sick like humans do. Where they calm on the boat or where they stressed. Was there a vet to euthanise if needed ?

I know on the larger walk on walk off boats a vet travels along with them.
I spoke to a vet that went to libia on one of these sailings where the regular vet was unable to travel. He claimed the living conditions of the philipino sailers living on the boat was worse than the cattle and their working conditions wouldn't be allowed here.
The passageways where all narrow and long where food and water had to be carried in and waste out by hand.
There were shy of 3k bulls on that boat and he treated 3 for acidosis and the bulls on average gained over kg/day for the trip.
Im told that the business isnt so profitable that you can afford for animals to lose or not be looking there very best when they reach their customer overseas.