Tuesday, Dec 1, 2015
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THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
Tooting for tucker Ashburton County Lions and their helpers were busy collecting for the annual Toot for Tucker appeal last night.
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PHOTO TETSURO MITOMO 011215-TM-143
Barrier arms installed P4
Farming GUA RDI AN
DECEM BER, 2015
Dairy farmers look after animals BY NADINE PORTER
The state of agricultural research in NZ
NADINE.P@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
Are we doing enough?
Pages 3-5
C ARING FOR CALVES
with today’s paper
In the wake of shocking footage emerging from the Waikato of violent abuse towards newborn bobby calves, local Mid Canterbury farming leaders are confident the same problem doesn’t exist here. Animal welfare organisation SAFE uncovered serious animal welfare breaches on some Fonterra farms in the region and called for consumers to ditch New Zealand dairy products. However, Mid Canterbury SPCA manager and inspector John Keeley said he hasn’t experienced many instances of abuse of calves but “nipped it in the bud” when cases arose. “If someone rings me and says there’s a truck at the gate loaded with calves and they are okay I’ll still say to the cocky ‘okay, let’s get a grip on this’ and there’s no hassle.” There was one report of a truck driver acting cruelly when loading calves
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around two years ago but Mr Keeley dealt with it promptly and another more recent case of calves being left in a crate at the gate. “But in Mid Canterbury we are lucky. I deal with Federated Farmers and they deal with me so we don’t see cruelty in this area (with calves) to that extent.” That sentiment was backed up by Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers’ president Willy Leferink who said they did not tolerate abuse. He believed the filmed abuse was due to a lack of education and rogue farmers who he described as being like “repeat drunk drivers”. Although criticism has been levelled at the Ministry of Primary Industries since the footage emerged, Mr Leferink said Mid Canterbury had an excellent relationship with the local MPI officer. “And that’s paramount.” Rural Transport Ashburton general manager Jim Crouchley said they trans-
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ported bobby calves for ANZCO and Alliance and were “very particular” about the welfare of those calves during transport. “We have a meeting prior to the bobby calf season with our drivers and absolutely lay down the law about the implications of mishandling stock.” Mr Crouchley said MPI strictly monitored transportation and his drivers were under no illusion that they would be dealt with severely should they mishandle stock. SAFE executive director Hans Kriek said he had not had complaints from Canterbury but believed bobby calf abuse was widespread based on the 10 different trucks that were filmed in the Waikato region where the animals were “thrown onto the trucks like potato sacks”. More unannounced inspections and better education might improve the problem, he said.
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