Skinny cows prompt meeting

CLIVE DALTON

STARVING: These seriously emaciated cows were offered at the Morrinsvilla sale last month. By law, they should not have been offered for sale or accepted by the agents.

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A mob of emaciated cows sold at Morrinsville before Christmas were in worse condition than animals suffering from the effects of the Waikato drought.

That's the view of Waikato Federated Farmers Dairy Industry Group chairman James Houghton, one of several dairy industry leaders who will attend a meeting tomorrow.

Waikato Federated Farmers President Stew Wadey called the meeting after retired agricultural scientist and Wintec lecturer Clive Dalton photographed the animals at the Morrinsville saleyards and demanded action.

"Through the drought, a couple of years ago, I did not see anything that skinny," Mr Houghton said. "The farmer should be held personally responsible for the state of these cows. He'd made a management decision to get rid of them, probably because he was under pressure, but he should not have sent them to the sale. They did look at their worst and probably had not had any feed for 12 hours before the sale."

Mr Wadey said there was some debate over the condition of the animals photographed, although the SPCA backed Dr Dalton's assessment that they were emaciated, as they appeared to be condition Score 2 or under.

The condition score system is an industry standard set by DairyNZ. Score 2 is emaciated.

Mr Wadey said he had sent a cow in slightly better condition directly to the works that day and earned $362. "It could have cost me $150 in hard feed to bring up the condition score – I would say she was about a condition Score 3. If these conditions are decided by the people in the room as not acceptable, then we must do something."

The identities of who transported, sold and bought the cows are not known and Maf had not been able to find out because Dr Dalton did not record their tag or pen numbers. The Waikato Times understands every animal offered for sale that day was sold. The SPCA is also investigating.

Maf's director of enforcement, Jockey Jensen, previously said the cows should not have been offered for sale at a saleyard. Maf will use the meeting to raise awareness about the problem.

A sign at the saleyard detail the code of recommendations and minimum standards for the welfare of animals under the Animal Welfare Act. It says; "Unhealthy, emaciated, injured, lame or unfit animals must not be consigned to, or will not be processed through, these saleyards. Any animal suspected of being unfit ... must not be transported for any reason unless it has been certified by a veterinarian."

DairyNZ sends 10,000 condition scoring booklets to farmers each year, but Mr Houghton said some farmers were not aware of how to use the system. "DairyNZ can send the communications out but, from my experience, a lot of farmers do their own thing."

Environment Waikato's sustainable agriculture co-ordinator Gabriele Kaufler said the latest data collected from farms showed cows were about one condition score below where they should be for the time of year.

"What we are seeing is 4.1 or 4.2 and they should be closer to 5 now.

If we have got those averages, there must be cows running around at 3.3 and lower."

She wanted to see an industry-wide approach to the problem, led by DairyNZ and Federated Farmers.

The meeting, which will be closed to the press, will include input from Mr Wadey, Waikato Federated Farmers vice-president Walter Scott and representatives from DairyNZ and Maf.

iSay: Do you know who transported, bought and sold these cows? Email farming editor Chris Gardner at chris.gardner@waikatotimes.co.nz or ring 078499612.

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