|
Vets warn that using high protein feeds
to boost milk yields can cause liver disease and mastitis,
or give cows udders so enlarged that they kick themselves
as they walk
See Cattle welfare statistics
The cowboys are beset by several significant problems and
the dairy industry is reeling. BSE originated in the dairy/beef/veal
industry. It was succeeded by the foot-and-mouth disaster,
which entailed another enormous cull of cattle that would
otherwise have been “productive.”
The controversial quotas have exerted their malign effects
in leaving dairy-farmers under-quota and hastily—and
improvidently—introducing bought-in replacements to their
depleted herds, accompanied by the usual pleas for government
grants to indemnify them for costs that the Exchequer increasingly
regards as a cost they and their insurers should bear, in
the manner of other food-producers, manufacturers, and retailers
have to meet when something goes wrong in the chain of production
and distribution.
Supermarket Squeeze
The public is beginning to show disquiet in various but uniformly
commercially-damaging ways: supermarkets are accused of paying
farmers too little for the milk (down to 15p a litre at times)
and making too much profit for themselves; the British industry
has not been very successful against competition (e.g. from
producers on mainland Europe) in the market for value-adding
(such as in the form of cheese, yogurt, crème fraiche,
and nutraceuticals and functional foods); and farmers going
organic have overestimated demand and are having to sell their
output undistinguished and without premium into the bulk supply
(a similar fate has overtaken the business in “free-range”
eggs).
Consumer Doubts
And then there are misgivings and doubts over origins and
issues of health, allergy, intolerance, fat and fat-soluble
components, and residual nasties, which require pasteurization—and
extensions to pasteurization—for one unpleasant reason
or another.
Milk Shortage
Britain could be heading for a shortage of 6 million to 12
million pints a day because 200,000 dairy cows have been killed
during the foot-and-mouth epidemic. “Owners of many of
the remaining herds are trying to fill the gap and avoid large-scale
imports by giving their animals huge boosts in protein and
carbohydrates. This can increase the output of a dairy cow
from 28 pints to almost 50 pints a per day,” warned the
Sunday Times, (09 September 2001). Quoting Mansel Raymond,
vice-chairman of the National Farmers’ Union milk committee,
who runs a 600-strong dairy-herd near Fishguard in Pembrokeshire,
the article states that “Britain is at its lowest level
in milk production for years.” Mr Raymond predicted aptly
that “by the winter many cows will have stopped lactating—but
the slaughter means they cannot be replaced. The only way
to meet demand is to give cows high-protein feeds and get
more milk from them.”
However, vets—to their credit and to the discredit of
many “ethical” veggies consuming and approving outputs
from the dairy/beef/veal industry—descry harm to the
cows as a result of such boosting. Carl Padgett, secretary
of the British Cattle Veterinary Association, said: “
If you get it wrong they can get liver disease, mastitis—or
their udders get so enlarged that they kick themselves as
they walk.”
Hasty, ill-considered, and unquarantined replacements of
culled livestock offer entry to the herds of viral and bacterial
challenges to which the remaining animals have no immunity.
VEGA has already plenty of evidence in welfare problems and
mortality in herds (and flocks) all over Britain.
Animal Welfare
The welfare of dairy cows was an important theme at a veterinary
conference in April 2001. Professor John Webster, of Bristol
University and a long-serving member of the government-appointed
Farm Animal Welfare Council, presented his views on Welfare
on the Dairy Farm: cows and their minders. He adopted “an
ethical matrix,” embracing the welfare of cow, consumer,
and farmer (Veterinary Record, 05 May 2001). “Consumers
tended to get what they wanted, anyway, and so, to a certain
extent, could look after themselves, provided they were kept
well-informed. Farmers, however, were deserving of special
respect, as they were the producers—the people who were
actually involved with the agricultural environment. If society
as a whole wishes to see better standards of animal welfare
and better conservation, you have to protect the people involved,”
Professor Webster said.
Distinguishing suffering and stress, Professor Webster defined
suffering as “an animal’s inability to cope with
stress.” As the best way of achieving “sustainable
cattle welfare” he would promote “appropriate changes
in husbandry and breeding practices. Over the long term the
target for sustained cattle fitness should be 6 lactations
before culling, rather than 2 or 3 lactations currently used
in an attempt to maximize the genetic progress of the herd.”
Anticipating doubts over such a concept of animal welfare
Professor Webster continued: “Productivity is compatible
with welfare so long as the animals are bred for fitness as
adults—and they aren’t. All cattle, especially high
milk-yield breeds, also needed access to appropriate nutrient
levels in order to maintain optimum milk output without causing
suffering via metabolic stress.” In the final stoke of
this controversial definition of welfare and husbandry for
the cow, Professor Webster suggested “the rapid culling
of ‘burn-outs’” He noted that welfare assurance
schemes were “all based around the provision of good
husbandry rather than measures of the animals’ welfare
state, which were more difficult to assess.”
Dr Becky Whay, also of Bristol University, reminded the conference
of issues in the welfare of dairy-cattle that had been raised
in answers to a questionnaire sent to “experts in the
field of animal welfare.” Dr Whay’s results were
consistent with those obtained by the Farm Animal Welfare
Council in revealing that issues such as lameness, cubicle
design/general comfort, and body condition/nutrition were
high on the list of welfare priorities. Other factors included
social interactions, skin health, and interactions with stockpersons.”
Lameness
Professor Webster presented a survey on factors associated
with lameness in dairy heifers, comparing heifers housed in
various environments and fed on forages of different types,
before and after calving. The results suggested that the major
cause of lameness in dairy-cattle involved changes in the
connective tissue of the pedal bone in the hoof, during calving,
and the onset of the first lactation. Husbandry practices
such as the type of housing and forage “had significant
effect on the severity and duration of lameness with dry forage
and “straw yard housing encouraging the most rapid recovery.”
Defenders of the veggie “ethic” defend their approvals
and complicity in the dairy-industry and its output with the
plea that “you don’t slaughter animals for their
milk.” There’s little distinction between culling
and killing; and a short life of disease and misery may still
be an eternity of suffering compared to expeditious slaughter.
An illuminating report on disposal and disease rates in 340
dairy herds from the Department of Veterinary Clinic Studies
of the University of Edinburgh and from Easter Bush Veterinary
Centre, Roslin, Midlothian (Veterinary Record, 25 March 2000)
demonstrates the baseness of any such claims.
Most of the 340 farms were participating in the Unigate Stockmanship
Standards quality assurance scheme supported by the White
Gold club. They were mainly south of a line between the Wash
and the Bristol Channel. The data cover the year between 01
April 1998 to 31 March 1999. The farms had 45,220 cows with
an average herd size of 133 (ranging from 33 to 432) with
an average milk yield per cow per year of 6,620 kg (ranging
from 4,000 to 9,200 kg). Quality assurance (how many times
are attempts made nowadays to lull us into false complacencies?)
is so defined that “a reasonable person with no special
knowledge of farming of animal health should be assured that
the levels of disease and welfare are acceptable.” The
latest study builds on information for previous years on incidences
of mastitis, lameness, ketosis, hypocalcemia, and hypomagnesemia
in the UK. These are typical production diseases; the two
last represent nutritional deficiencies in calcium and magnesium.
A summary of the results would indicate considerable stretching
of the average person’s ideas of acceptability. The commentators
observe that “the rates of disease recorded in this survey,
although they are not certainly representative of the whole
of Britain, were derived from a large area where milk is produced
and from a larger sample of cows and herds than has been hitherto
surveyed. It is therefore suggested that the results can be
used as a standard against which the performance of dairy
farms in this country can be measured in the context of welfare
and quality assurance schemes.”
The reasonable person would have the following unsavoury
statistics to assess.
The average total culling rate during
the year was 22.1% resulting from these causes:
Infertility 5.6%
Mastitis 3.6%
Lameness 1.7%
Poor Milk Yield 2.0%
Age 3.7%
Miscellaneous
(including death) 5.5%
Average rates of various misadventures were as follows:
Assisted Calvings 8.7%
Injury 0.7%
Digestive Disease 1.3%
Ketosis
(metabolic upset) 0.4%
Hypomagnesemia 0.7%
Hypocalcemia 5.3%
Mastitis 36.6%
Lameness 23.7%
<<
PAGE TOP >>
|
