The mother here almost 70 often feed the calves, she needs a stick to give them a little tip on the nose to get them off the feeder or keep back a hungry one to let a slower one drink..she is not a person I would describe as cruel to animals .but I agree in general no need for a stick loading or dosing etc.
You had the president of ICMSA, A dairy organisation, commenting. IFA were never asked to comment
Imo the vet was the only one that came across any way well. The tesgasc guy got away lightly as did the marts guy. My thoughts on the media attention seeking farming couple are best kept to my self.
Apart from a couple of incidents there was nothing on show that was bad .Fran I say was disappointed that he didn't get any real juicy stories. Where was the ifa all we had was a certain farming couple who loves to be in the limelight. Then on twitter we'll have the certain progessive farmers who feed no meal and can make a profit at 20 cent a litre apparently having a pop at mart staff and hauliers I wonder where there calves end up.
Zero need for a stock around calves
For me, the guy throwing the calf off the trailer was the worst part. They must have filmed hundreds of hours to capture that. I've been at marts all my life and I never seen anything like that. I still think the use of sticks to handle calves is fine as long as they are not belted with them. Giving a calf a gentle prod to move and using the stick to direct them is fine in my book.
Would subsidised Veal Production be the answer to "worthless" dairy calves?
Pat Dillon from Teagasc didn't come across well, but overall the Govt's FoodWise-2025 plan on 'more milk at any cost' got away very lightly. Why not look at the breeding policy promoted by Teagasc/Govt policy that is continuing to produce the €5 calf?
The NFU were quite vocal in their opposition to Brexit. It was other cheerleaders that were making those claims
Ya, I usually just pick them up off the ground and give them the VIP treatment. Never said you couldn't catch them like you say bogman.
There was some fine calves on it I thought. Alot of fine healthy dairy beef calves referred to as worthless and byproducts. But still worth enough to drive them all the way to Poland and Spain.
Biggest problem I see is too many cows calving at the same time. The calves are far from "worthless byproducts" before and after the glut.
Normally in there dealing with export certs
Hold on there. Of course you can catch a calf without catching them by the ear or tail. That’s a silly thing to say
The footage from New Zealand had no place ….that was pure barbaric
programme was hard hitting and some of treatement seen at Marts not acceptable ….since quotas went there’s been huge expansion after been shackled for years …..kiwi style dairying was the model main advisory bodies shoved us twoards despite highly questionable welfare and enviro standards ….that was the start of the position we are now in ….Tegasc got away very very lightly last night don’t think they got a mention …..roofless cubicles …kiwi genetics …high fertiliser usage ,second,third units ….load on the cows worry about slurry storage later etc etc and only one has the balls to admit they forgot to think about all the extra calves
export needs to stay as I feel bigger welfare issues will crop up if we don’t ….whole thing from calves leaving our farm to arriving at a veal farm in Holland ,Spain Poland wherever needs serious thought put into it …calves on a truck over 17:18 hours without unloading and good feed is not acceptable
Showing 8 year old footage from new Zealand was a bit stupid too.. And the 2 ones at the mart do they want a big massive pen for each calf in the mart individually. See my friend wicklow cattle company on it too....
Very much pandering to the far left and the vegan wing
Noticed that too. Not a clue like.
Another example of Fran’s dramatic commentary which is inaccurate: when the worker in France pulled out the dead calf before unloading the rest, Fran said the other calves all stopped to look at it as they passed. The implication being they were sad at their friends death.
What he didn’t say was that if a live calf or Fran himself stood in the same spot as the dead calf, the other calves would all stop for a look too.
Thats just what calves do. They’re curious and nervous. That’s normal calf behaviour.
But not according to Fran.
TBH, I can't believe that you didn't see it coming.
I thought it would have been a lot worse with all the “build up” to it over the weekend.
Yes there’s definitely a few men that need reprimanding in it but you can be sure they didn’t just spend 10 minutes recording the footage. There was probably hours of footage from various different marts, and if them few short clips were the worst of what they found it hardly justified a trip to France and Spain for Fran and his team at the expense of the tax payer.
Record enough of hours of footage in any workplace dealing in the care of animals or people and I’m sure there’ll be incidents that shouldn’t happen but do.
It’s a bit strange to be making the assembly points and lairages out to be some sort of dirty secret. If anything the way to improve the transport situation is to have more lairages so the lorry’s can pull in and let the calves out for an hour along the way.
Showing a calf lying down chewing his cud in a straw bedded pen in a mart is great to see if you ask me, that pen of calves were under very minimal stress.
The thing that Fran didn’t state when he was on about the temperature in France was the trailers all have fans on them and nipple water drinkers and are all inspected to be used as livestock transportation, the Hynes come out of looking bad that she didn’t know what was happening when they sold their calves, they must be related to someone in Rte. the marts using the sticks have no one to blame only themselves, also no input by IFA the main farming body.
When you look at it ,it comes down to calf handling training and facilities .I ll hold up my hand and say I did not know it was illegal to move a calf by the tail but many of the problems are created by poor design of facilities in marts and a poor understanding of handling calves.you would have to ask questions as to wether its appropriate to trade calves that ultimately end up being exported through the mart.the amount of time and extra handling added to the system cannot be afforded given the overall distance that has to be travelled. I didn't like the way it was portrayed that assembly point s were somehow shady when it offers massive animal welfare improvements over going through the ring.every thing should be done to streamline and improve the process and I think the dairy industry should embrace any changes that positively improve ca.lf welfare.just one thing that struck me is the quote that the Netherlands exports 90 % of its veal and I don't understand why it can't be done here to so e extent.one last thing is I cant understand how any calves survive if the practices shown are wide spread because if they were subjected to that management on farms they all be dead .bottom line everyone involved must work to improve the welfare of the calves that are exported
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+1 on the above. If you took the older French lairage footage and the New Zealand Bobby calf footage out of it then there isn't much to be seen that isn't the inside of a mart or the outside of a lorry. Granted there was a few lad's that could do with staying away from handling calves but there wasn't much harrowing viewing imo.
Did anyone inform Fran and Co that calves die from time to time on Irish soil. The 2 dead calves at the veal unit at the end were there for a few weeks prior to there demise and you'll have losses with livestock under the best of conditions as we all know. I suppose I'll be accused of making excuses and what not but of all the heinous things that happen to man and beast worldwide on a daily basis I don't think any of what they documented would make the top 10,000.
It's probably not loss making it just lower profitability. It's immaterial anyway as of next year calves will have to be kept until they are of a saleable value. Board bia is putting a maximum of 4% mortality on dairy farms
Within 2-3 years calves will have to be held to at least 4-6 weeks of age. If it's unprofitable to rear calves then it up to dairy farmers to sort it.
Shipping will probably be gone within 3 years as well
I'll agree to disagree
Can't catch a calf by ear or tail. Ha - Good luck with that.
In the past 41 years I've bought and reared several thousands of dairy/ dairy x beef calves and I've never caught any of them by the ear or tail. Ye need to have patience handling young calves and if you don't then unfortunately the calves are going to be handled inappropriately.
I lolled at the calf lying down. Made sound like he was falling down due to over crowding when he was really doing a very careful sit down that you see calves doing. Seen another stressed calf chewing the cud.
A little selected editing. I genuinely thought the footage they had would be a lot worse.
Not AA but AAX
(the X being a modern freisean/Holstein)
There's a big difference.
Easy calving small Angus bulls are the go to for first timers in the dairy herd.
The resulting difference between a traditional butty Angus calf or continental cross and the some/many modern dairy AAX's is stark.
A good long muscular Angus/Hereford bull crossed with a square tall traditional British freisean made a grand calf in general. It's continuously getting harder to find such calves these days.
The water trough looked fine to me, the worst footage was from new Zealand like.
this is the reality of rearing calves to weaning and selling.
A pure loss making operation, that’s why dairy farmers don’t do it. The only hope you have would be to bring them all the way to finish
Majority of dairy farmers have no interest in that unless they have the spare sheds, land and labour available and more often than not it’s down to land available
dairy is way more profitable and creates a viable full time job
