Nz bobby calves

epfff · 29-11-2015 8:20pm #1

Will this expose on agriland have any effect on diary over there/here

Or will it just blow over
Because it will cost too much

Mehaffey1 · 29-11-2015 8:46pm

epfff wrote: »

Will this expose on agriland have any effect on diary over there/here

Or will it just blow over
Because it will cost too much

It was the feature of a program on TV here in NZ aired last night. I haven't seen the footage but to be honest I can't see it making too much of a difference really.

Cruelty to calves does occur from cruel and sick people, have seen it on my third working day on a NZ farm which was a worker killing the first calf of the season with a hammer. At the time it was not the method that bothered me it was the fact that he was laughing especially when he could see my girlfriend was upset over it.

Over 95% of dairy farms would be compliant, which is not to say perfect, but acceptable in how they treat calves. The other 5% are sadistic people who don't deserve to be in the industry.

Charges in recent time on animal cruelty on NZ farms have increased in number and severity including prison time not just fines. This is good as it really shows how much in the spotlight NZ farmers are. In recent times there is nothing the NZ farmer can do right in the eyes of the media. Nitrogen leaching, palm kernel extract use and now this Bobby calf expose. No one outside of agriculture praises the work they are doing to improve practices ie this year is the first year were inducting late calving cows was outlawed and I seen no mention of it either online or the national papers.

For a counter view our bobby calves are loaded into a trailer which has straw changed every week. They are fed before being put in the trailer the evening before they are lifted by the truck at around 6am. The trailer fits on the quick hitch and we back in into a clear bay in the normal calf pens. We pull the tractor out when milking starts and they've been collected by the time we go for breakfast.

To sum up the sick B**tards who do this now won't be put off by some TV investigation.

bogman_bass · 29-11-2015 9:12pm

epfff wrote: »

Will this expose on agriland have any effect on diary over there/here

Or will it just blow over
Because it will cost too much

Agriland exposed nothing. This has been well known for a long time. It's a practice that I'm supprised has been let continue for so long over there. It's only in the past couple of years that hitting them over the head with a hammer has been outlawed

kollegeknight · 29-11-2015 9:48pm

A young fella went to NZ as part of work experience for agri cert. Said he was paid $5 for every bull calf he killed. Picked them off with a rifle, and put them a pit for burning.

He said the boss used kill any near him with a sledge to save price of bullet.

I couldn't stomach that.

Bullocks · 29-11-2015 9:55pm

kollegeknight wrote: »

A young fella went to NZ as part of work experience for agri cert. Said he was paid $5 for every bull calf he killed. Picked them off with a rifle, and put them a pit for burning.

He said the boss used kill any near him with a sledge to save price of bullet.

I couldn't stomach that.

Was he on piece work or something ? Did he get paid for every cow milked aswell ?
When you say "pick them off " it sounds like he was hunting an elusive prey on the outback , I doubt it was hard to shoot them and I also doubt he was given a price to shoot them when he was on work experience

trixi2011 · 29-11-2015 10:09pm

I have worked on large scale nz dairy farms for over 6 years and never came across the sort of scenes you have seen in this video. This is not the norm on Nz dairy farms.

trixi2011 · 29-11-2015 10:10pm

kollegeknight wrote: »

A young fella went to NZ as part of work experience for agri cert. Said he was paid $5 for every bull calf he killed. Picked them off with a rifle, and put them a pit for burning.

He said the boss used kill any near him with a sledge to save price of bullet.

I couldn't stomach that.

Id say that's a bit of a tall tale lad

Limestone Cowboy · 29-11-2015 10:11pm

I'm not surprised to be honest, I have seen a few posts on here over the last few years alluding to the exact same carry on shown on the video. Also I think those animal rights activist crowds are a bunch of looneys and the footage couldn't be bad enough for them to help they're cause, it probably doesn't represent the vast majority of farmers in Nz but they will all be tarred with the one brush now.

Mad4simmental · 29-11-2015 10:20pm

Can you not shoot them at birth? It would be better than holding them for a few days. I know distance from the knacker would be different in NZ than Ireland. That lad in the vid could do with been hung up.

kollegeknight · 29-11-2015 10:22pm

trixi2011 wrote: »

Id say that's a bit of a tall tale lad

I cannot verify if it was true or not as I was not there but I can say it was said to me 6 months ago or more before any of this came on agri land.

Sam Kade · 29-11-2015 10:22pm

The usual youtube cherry picked nonsense for shock tactics. It happens but they want people to believe every farm is the same.

Sam Kade · 29-11-2015 10:23pm

kollegeknight wrote: »

I cannot verify if it was true or not as I was not there but I can say it was said to me 6 months ago or more before any of this came on agri land.

You should have taken it with a grain of salt.

Mad4simmental · 29-11-2015 10:24pm

Sam Kade wrote: »

The usual youtube cherry picked nonsense for shock tactics. It happens but they want people to believe every farm is the same.

Ya the poor baby calves are ripped away from their mammys. Ha

The Cuban · 29-11-2015 10:33pm

Absolutely shocking the whole thing is disturbing, the NZ system of dairy has gone too far down the milk route that the bobby calves are worthless for beef.
We are not a million miles behind here with the breeding, anyone rearing bucket calves off dairy will have noticed how the quality of these calves has deteriorated over the last few years. We are starting to see worthless jersey calves about in numbers now too.

Deepsouthwest · 29-11-2015 10:34pm

Watched the video earlier, and it's pretty damning to be honest. But, scarily, probably doing nothing worse than some Cowboys might do here if they found themselves in the same situation.

pedigree 6 · 29-11-2015 10:38pm

I've never been to NZ. But have read about calves left at end of road for collectors. This really shows NZ in a bad light whether it can be shown in the same light as brazil's beef industry compared to Ireland i'm not sure.
However I doubt that every farmer in NZ treats their animals this way.
I was at a rural crime meeting and someone asked the guard there about a certain guard and his response was there's good teachers and bad teachers, good priests and bad priests, good guards and bad guards.
What i'm saying is there's obviously bad farmers or people managing livestock, these people should be found out and jailed and never allowed own or manage livestock ever again.
They are a disgrace to the honest hardworking caring farmers (the 99.9%) of farmers.

trixi2011 · 29-11-2015 10:39pm

Mad4simmental wrote: »

Can you not shoot them at birth? It would be better than holding them for a few days. I know distance from the knacker would be different in NZ than Ireland. That lad in the vid could do with been hung up.

Some farms do shoot them at birth but the majority of them go on for slaughter at 4 day old + there are actually strict rules to adhere to be able to supply bobby calves to the factory. The majority of bobby calves that are slaughtered in nz are threw meat factories similar to what we have in Ireland with department vets present and usually within an hour drive from were the calves have been picked up. The slaughter house in the video is a back street dog food company by the sounds of things. Most of the bobby calves slaughtered in Nz are for human consumption

trixi2011 · 29-11-2015 10:40pm

pedigree 6 wrote: »

I've never been to NZ. But have read about calves left at end of road for collectors. This really shows NZ in a bad light whether it can be shown in the same light as brazil's beef industry compared to Ireland i'm not sure.
However I doubt that every farmer in NZ treats their animals this way.
I was at a rural crime meeting and someone asked the guard there about a certain guard and his response was there's good teachers and bad teachers, good priests and bad priests, good guards and bad guards.
What i'm saying is there's obviously bad farmers or people managing livestock, these people should be found out and jailed and never allowed own or manage livestock ever again.
They are a disgrace to the honest hardworking caring farmers (the 99.9%) of farmers.

End of road collections have been illegal over there for quite a while

pedigree 6 · 29-11-2015 10:47pm

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Watched the video earlier, and it's pretty damning to be honest. But, scarily, probably doing nothing worse than some Cowboys might do here if they found themselves in the same situation.

Ah come on we're nowhere like that in this country. Public image is everything and we produce a calf that is worth something. There's good and bad and you cant get any worse than this.

Deepsouthwest · 29-11-2015 11:02pm

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Ah come on we're nowhere like that in this country. Public image is everything and we produce a calf that is worth something. There's good and bad and you cant get any worse than this.

Sorry, can't agree, can u honestly say that there isn't a mart in the country that u won't see some fool shoeing a calf in or out of a trailer.
If there was a hidden camera in any mart here, well edited footage could be made look v bad here as well.
I don't condone it for second, but It's naive to think that 99.9% of irish farmers/drovers don't cross the line.

pedigree 6 · 29-11-2015 11:31pm

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Sorry, can't agree, can u honestly say that there isn't a mart in the country that u won't see some fool shoeing a calf in or out of a trailer.
If there was a hidden camera in any mart here, well edited footage could be made look v bad here as well.
I don't condone it for second, but It's naive to think that 99.9% of irish farmers/drovers don't cross the line.

Did you see the whole video it was a guy hitting calves with a bar and a nail on it. That doesn't happen here. There's a lot more abuse in NZ and there's been some recent prosecutions there of managers/staff there.
I'm sure if you saw animal abuse here you would report it the same as anyone would.

Deepsouthwest · 30-11-2015 1:02am

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Did you see the whole video it was a guy hitting calves with a bar and a nail on it. That doesn't happen here. There's a lot more abuse in NZ and there's been some recent prosecutions there of managers/staff there.
I'm sure if you saw animal abuse here you would report it the same as anyone would.

Yes I did, and that was particularly appalling. But they seemed to be more interested in taking the calves away from the cows so young, and in particular the guys loading/throwing calves. Yes, the abuse in NZ is worse, far worse, but I don't think we need to be taking the moral high ground here.

Dawggone · 30-11-2015 10:42am

Watched that video. Typical of the animal rights activists.
Now we need solidarity with NZ (even though we may be 'praying' for them next May!) and show there is no place for this in modern farming.

I'm always skeptical when they roll out so called experts that use terms like animal "rights" and "emotions"...

A lot of humans on this planet don't have rights. Animals have instincts not emotions.

Maybe it's time to open up our farms to the local and city children to stop the disconnect. Children believe what they see on the interweb.

Timmaay · 30-11-2015 11:33am

Dawggone wrote: »

Watched that video. Typical of the animal rights activists.
Now we need solidarity with NZ (even though we may be 'praying' for them next May!) and show there is no place for this in modern farming.

I'm always skeptical when they roll out so called experts that use terms like animal "rights" and "emotions"...

A lot of humans on this planet don't have rights. Animals have instincts not emotions.

Maybe it's time to open up our farms to the local and city children to stop the disconnect. Children believe what they see on the interweb.

Agreed, I regularly see rubbish on Facebook like "watch this elephants tears of happiness after being freed from its chains for 50years", as you referred to, animals simple as is have a lot less emotions than humans, and it's total wishful thinking otherwise, however the whole instinctual element of nature is immensely powerful, them kids would learn a hell of alot more by visiting a farm or even just watching a proper wildlife TV show than getting shown this cheap tugging on heartstrings rubbish.

Ok sorry going wildly off topic, sorry ha!

blackdog1 · 30-11-2015 12:23pm

New Zealand should do the world a favor by raising more beef and less dairy cows. They have double or triple or number of cows with the same population and a very small beef industry. I can see companies like mufri(milk produced in a lab) and other vegans pushing this video big time

Dawggone · 30-11-2015 1:20pm

blackdog1 wrote: »

New Zealand should do the world a favor by raising more beef and less dairy cows. They have double or triple or number of cows with the same population and a very small beef industry. I can see companies like mufri(milk produced in a lab) and other vegans pushing this video big time

Ah no Blackdog...

RobertKK · 30-11-2015 1:40pm

Dawggone wrote: »

Watched that video. Typical of the animal rights activists.
Now we need solidarity with NZ (even though we may be 'praying' for them next May!) and show there is no place for this in modern farming.

I'm always skeptical when they roll out so called experts that use terms like animal "rights" and "emotions"...

A lot of humans on this planet don't have rights. Animals have instincts not emotions.

Maybe it's time to open up our farms to the local and city children to stop the disconnect. Children believe what they see on the interweb.

There is science that shows some other animals do have emotions. A lot of science to back up elephants have emotions.
A study of cows.showed that cows have best friends and those they don't like being separated.
'If we can encourage farmers to keep an eye out for those cows which like to keep their friends with them, it could have some real benefits, such as improving their milk yields and reducing stress for the animals, which is very important for their welfare.
'I've spoken to a number of farmers who have said they do notice bonds building among their cows and some spending a lot of time together.'

Cattle do have emotional ties to other cattle whom they are friends with which is aside from instinct.

The fact is we are all mammals.

RobertKK · 30-11-2015 1:43pm

Put aside the calves were going to be killed and we see a calf being killed in the video. Throwing calves around and dragging them around and treating them as if they were not alive, that is my problem with what the video shows.
Also the method of killing they showed didn't look to be the best method.

mahoney_j · 30-11-2015 2:18pm

That video is pretty damming .the practice may not be typical of a lot of kiwi dairy farms but it dose show there total disregard for male calves .bobby calves isn't a new phenomenon over there ,clubbing calves with a hammer cause it was cheaper than a bullet was a practice carried out on farms has been thankfully stopped on paper anyway .if we keep getting shoved the kiwi direction in this country that's were well end up and I for one want nothing to do with it.from the outside there appears to be a profit before all else thinking,it's milk or nothing and the bull calf and cull cow that suffers and they want rid as quickly as possible sometimes by any means before they loose a dollar .thankfully in this country we have traceability and very good ainmal welfare standards with a good green image ,hopefully that remains in tack nobody should be making excuses for what happens in that video ,it's downright wrong and may not be common place but it dose happen

kowtow · 30-11-2015 2:57pm

mahoney_j wrote: »

That video is pretty damming .the practice may not be typical of a lot of kiwi dairy farms but it dose show there total disregard for male calves .bobby calves isn't a new phenomenon over there ,clubbing calves with a hammer cause it was cheaper than a bullet was a practice carried out on farms has been thankfully stopped on paper anyway .if we keep getting shoved the kiwi direction in this country that's were well end up and I for one want nothing to do with it.from the outside there appears to be a profit before all else thinking,it's milk or nothing and the bull calf and cull cow that suffers and they want rid as quickly as possible sometimes by any means before they loose a dollar .thankfully in this country we have traceability and very good ainmal welfare standards with a good green image ,hopefully that remains in tack nobody should be making excuses for what happens in that video ,it's downright wrong and may not be common place but it dose happen

That's very true, it's the natural progression of the acute specialisation needed to produce commodity milk. It's the diametric opposite of traditional "mixed" farming where everything had a use and there was very little waste (although, paradoxically, very little efficiency in the terms we measure it today).

The problem is that the commodity milk market New Zealand - and increasingly Ireland - lives for is driven purely by price - it has no mechanism for the onward transmission of value and values in the wider sense.

And values - whether ethical (not clubbing bobby calves on the gate) ecological (producing milk from grass), or social (maintaining family farm units) all increase the cost of production.

China, I think, won't be making too much of a fuss about the content of that video, and as long as producing dried powder for China is the biggest game in town it's going to be very difficult to stamp out (New Zealand) or avoid falling into (Ireland) some of the less palatable practices of dairying.

djmc · 30-11-2015 6:59pm

Some of the practice in that video was normal practice in Ireland 25 to 30 years ago.
I remember the local butcher and even the factory killing causality pigs with an iron bar.
They would also take downer cows that couldn't stand up and it was all legal at the time you could also drink 3 pints and drive home
We have come a long way since then and have good standards of welfare now.
I wouldn't like to see it going too far either like a farmer in local paper who got fined and almost jailed for having a cow with calving pariliss out in a field after a hard calving.
The argument that it was the best place for her to recover was passed off by the judge who would not be from a farming background and thought she should be treated indoors.
If the animal rights crowd had their way we would all be vegan's and our farms would be wildlife parks for the few wild cows left that probably wouldn't survive long as they have been domesticated for a few thousand years.

Farmer Ed · 30-11-2015 8:30pm

It never ceases to amaze me how some Irish farmers as so eager for our dairy industry to grow up to be like NZ. The facts are NZ farmers get some of the worst milk prices in the world and their Co Op executives are paid some of the highest salaries in the world.
A friend of mine spoke to a couple from NZ who were visiting Ireland last week. They said they had to give up dairy farming our their marriage would not survive.

It seems very clear that NZ farming is hard on man and beast. That video shows it in a very poor light. Even if it is not common practice it is just not acceptable. This kind of thing is painting dairy farming in a very poor light. I have personally seen a growing number of people give up dairy. We in Ireland need to be proactive in condemning and distancing ourselves from this!

Mehaffey1 · 30-11-2015 9:03pm

Learned to use a captive bolt gun this year and has been a valuable experience. My employer prefers to do the causalty cows and calves himself and doesn't insist on any employees to do it if they don't want to. Had a calf get rolled on by its mother breaking it's leg on his days off so I took it on. Was very clean and easy with no extra suffering for the calf.

Not everyone thinks about their farm being in the public's eye which has to change. Our farm is on an open road leading to the local clay pigeon shooting club so it keeps us on our toes. Means we're on top of our game in treating animals correctly from bobby calves through to the collecting yard for the milking cows and everything is kept neat and tidy.

davidk1394 · 30-11-2015 10:17pm

Mad4simmental wrote: »

Can you not shoot them at birth? It would be better than holding them for a few days. I know distance from the knacker would be different in NZ than Ireland. That lad in the vid could do with been hung up.

I'd say a knackery would be the least of their problems

Base price · 30-11-2015 10:36pm

For **** sake can any of ye please educate yourselves on Irish/EU legislation and stop spouting nonsensical crap from Australia etc - that **** has noting to do with us.

Miname · 30-11-2015 11:15pm

Just watched that video, it's fairly rough. There's always an idiot like the lad in the video somewhere. I'd seriously doubt it's common practice over there but there was still enough of it happening for the animal rights to get their vid.

Nekarsulm · 30-11-2015 11:51pm

If you were in our local mart last Saturday, and saw calf prices, you wouldn't be thinking of killing a bull calf. You'd be wrapping it in cotton wool and minding it like a baby.
Two different systems entirely. A world of a difference and half a world away.

amacca · 01-12-2015 12:22am

Nekarsulm wrote: »

If you were in our local mart last Saturday, and saw calf prices, you wouldn't be thinking of killing a bull calf. You'd be wrapping it in cotton wool and minding it like a baby.
Two different systems entirely. A world of a difference and half a world away.

Agreed...(although I have seen a larger number of poorer quality calves being offered in places where I usually buy of late so maybe we are venturing down that road)

I do calf to beef and I have to say when I watched the video a number of things sprang to mind - it is sad to see a resource like that wasted (I consider it waste to some extent if its just dogfood or they are slaughtered immediately) and I felt sorry for the calves particularly the roughness of the handling although some degree of physicality is sometimes needed to get calves to move where you need them to be - not violence or throwing them around like a bag of rubbish mind or the kicking/cruelty..but I suppose the callousness could creep in if your at it 24-7 for years and you have hundreds a day to get through, the slaughter method should be different/humane etc..Maybe I'm naive but I'd imagine a lot of farmer would see no need to be excessive when it comes to this (obviously theres always a gob****e or two)

I wish they could hold on to them for a week and give them to me, id gladly take them off their hands and give them a lovely grass fed 18 months - Jersey or not if I got them free they'd leave me with more (probably still small though) money than paying anywhere between 200 and 400 a head for them.

Nz bobby calves

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