Part 1: Why ‘buy british’ should be ‘buy british because..’

It goes without saying that I am a big backer of British produce. Where possible that is, as obviously, we cannot produce everything in this country. Besides the fact British food is likely to have less food miles (i.e it’s generally fresher and more environmentally friendly compared to sourcing it from the other side of the world) and you’re supporting local economies by buying it, why should you buy British? Why should you care to source British lamb over New Zealand lamb or British Broccoli over fancy purple Spanish Broccoli?

Firstly, red meat reared in the UK, is reared to the highest welfare standards in the world. I’m not being biased when I say this. We were the first Country in the world to implement animal rights law and we continue to push for more, because we know it is not only ethical but the happier our animals, the better they produce/grow and ultimately taste.

We give the consumer options about the system they want to buy from. The poultry guys are particularly brilliant at this. Want eggs? Caged birds, barn laid eggs, organic or free range options available. Not to mention the thousands of hens living the good life across farms and smallholdings all over the UK. Try sourcing higher welfare eggs in the EU (i.e not just standard EU approved caged) and you’ll be extremely lucky to find any.

The same story is true for pork. In the rest of the world, pigs are reared in rather barren environments on slats (boards for the excrement to fall through). I was recently approached at a local farm shop by a family who thought I worked there. There was a pig in very nice, clean, warm conditions. The lady said ‘it is disgusting how that pig is kept, with no straw to lie in’ and proceeded to have a little rant at me until I informed her I didn’t work there. I wandered over to have a look; the pig was actually belly deep in shavings and very comfortable indeed but she couldn’t ‘see’ that. I wonder if she’d have felt a bit silly if i’d have told her how the Danish bacon or chop she’d purchased lived when it was alive..

This has improved to what it was, pigs are now given enrichment i.e toys to play with, diets that make them feel satiated etc; million of pounds have been spent on how to keep them happy, as it is abundantly clear that unhappy (stressed) stock does not thrive, perform efficiently or taste good.

Here in the UK you have a range of options from intensive, enriched (straw bedding- the pigs can root around and observe more natural behaviours), Outdoor reared, ‘free range’ pork, organic etc, all of which essentially provide the animals things to do, so the animal feels happier.

Whilst animals want to observe their natural behaviour, we as farmers do not let them live ‘Naturally’. An animal living ‘naturally’ is not always an animal kept at a higher welfare standard. For example, we deal with disease, we euthanise animals that are in pain, on a farm they are generally free from predation, they are treated if they are lame, we assist in difficult births etc. Whilst the welfare lobby may try and convince you animals want a ‘natural’ life and ‘freedom’, please think about what ‘freedom’ could truly mean for an animal in the wild. Most farmers try to compromise somewhere between intensive farming and allowing an animal to observe all of its natural behaviours.

‘Dairy is scary’ the article said, well I found the fact this article managed to be published in a national newspaper scary. In fact I was nearly speechless, after writing my first blog post, I was informed the Guardian had written their own take on the Daily Mail’s article, which made the former look like a bedtime story.

So I want to start from the top, paragraph by paragraph and explain what is true and what is not.

Firstly, whilst widely used, artificial insemination is not the only way cows are made pregnant, ‘Traditional’ methods are still used (!) i.e a bull, on most farms. Insemination is used for many reasons to improve your animals by accessing the best semen; cow health and lameness are widely selected for along with other production traits. The majority of bulls have semen taken from them using this method, not 'mechanical extraction':

1. Cow in heat turns up to ‘tease’ the bull

2. Bull doing what bulls do, jumps her  

3. When he draws out his penis, an assistant places the penis into basically a posh collecting flask, now the bull does the deed and if you ask me, is probably pretty happy about it.

Now, I have been on an AI course, so I will tell you exactly what happens when you AI a cow. Cows are put in a cattle crush or AI stall to protect both them and me from injury. A crush locks the cows head so it is standing in a stall so I can access the rear, whilst an AI stall leaves her free, with a small chain parallel to her knees to prevent her from kicking me or reversing.   Logically I am not going to ‘brutally impregnate her’ because why would I want to damage her internally, I want her to produce a calf. If blood (from damaged tissue) was actually present during the insemination, the procedure would have a very low success rate because white blood cells see semen as ‘foreign’ and would destroy it, which isn’t exactly conducive to pregnancy. Also I might add, neither is stress, but funnily enough conception rate from AI can nearly equal natural service. So the insemination itself: 1.  I have my AI ‘gun’ already prepped (this is about 30 cm in length and about as thin as a drinking straw (so definitely smaller than a bulls penis (!) so it is not going to hurt her!)   2. You insert your hand into the cow’s rectum (no I don’t imagine this is pleasant)  so you can find the cervix. 3. Now your other hand is free to insert the gun (which has been down your back, keeping nice and warm- to keep the semen warm, not because I’m odd) through the cervix and press down releasing the semen just on the other side.   4. A good technician will have this done in under 10 mins, that’s including prep. A calf is indeed removed, generally as soon as possible, sometimes when it has sucked and sometimes the mother is milked for the calf to be fed with a bottle. Dairy cows are sometimes distressed by this, but as a whole, these cows are bred to milk and not bred for maternal ability and are much less aggrieved than say a beef cow would be. Therefore, most cows are extremely accepting, in particular those who have previously calved/when the calf is quickly removed before bonding occurs. Calves quickly bond with other calves and the human that feeds them, and I might add, with no calf bawling back to her, anyone who knows anything about livestock knows that these cows do not ‘scream for days’ for their calves. The removal of a calf from its mother is required so that that milk can be consumed by humans. I am not ethically trying to persuade you in either way, what you choose to do is your business. It is important to note that because these cows have been bred to produce enormous quantities of milk, if a cow was to suckle a calf, there is no way the calf could consume all of it, which could potentially lead to problems, chiefly mastitis (painful inflammation of the udder). Not to mention the pain of a large, heavy udder full of milk. This is why cows enjoy being milked, it relieves them of that ‘full’ feeling. Cows which are robotically milked actively go to the robot to express.   Now to the calf, this is also another reason AI is used- so that ‘sexed semen’ i.e mainly consisting of female sperm cells can be used to give a much larger number of heifers, reducing the numbers of bull calves. I know of very very few calves that get ‘shot and tossed in the bin’. Why? Because, why would we? Bull calves are a valuable source of revenue to dairy farms, strong calves are sold to rearing farms/are reared on surplus milk and eventually fattened. You would only need to go to any livestock market in the country and see evidence of these animals sold in store and fat rings. ‘Delaying their death for veal’ is ridiculous, they are livestock, reared to extremely high welfare standards and whether you like it or not are reared for food, the ethics of which I do not plan on debating. Now onto cow housing, cows are housed for around 6 months a year because we have this thing called winter, where the grass stops growing, it is cold and unpleasant. Would you like to live outside all winter? ‘Zero grazing’ systems are niche, and whilst I don’t want to get into the ins and outs of it, they are generally state of the art, incredibly high welfare systems, because they invest so much money into cow comfort. But again, it is up to you on the ethics of whether cows should summer outside or not. Right, we will get this straight: IN THE UK, MILK FROM COWS TREATED WITH ANTIBIOTICS IS DISCARDED AND NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.  The hormone BST can be given to cows to boost production, but it is BANNED in EU. These chemicals are NOT in our food chain. Therefore, why would a farmer give his cows antibiotics and hormones to produce more milk, if that milk could only end up in the bin? Farmers are tested extremely regularly for this, and would lose their milk payments and ultimately their contracts if their milk was testing positive. Some hormones are present in the milk because the milk comes from a cow who is either pregnant or cycling. These are in very small amounts and as they are bovine hormones, they are not believed to have a great effect on us.  Secondly a farmer cannot force a cow to ‘carry’ milk, could you ‘force’ your wife to produce more breast milk? Don’t be silly. So these cows have been bred to produce large quantities, but there’s nothing ‘forced’ about it, that is the genetics of that cow.   The average lifespan of a dairy cow is around 5-6 years. Longevity is something many dairy farmers are working extremely hard to improve on. It is lower in certain breeds than others, and with the explosion in cross bred genetics I think this number can only rise. I won’t lie, for the last 30+ years production has been king, in my opinion this has been detrimental to some animals (i.e the extreme) but give them credit, dairy farmers have adapted and are moving towards a more balanced, sustainable and economical animal. A heifer born today, will be around two years old when she has her first calf, so this is a slow process and cannot be quickly changed.   The fact the cows at the end of their production go to slaughter is accepted fact. Really you shouldn’t be consuming animal products if you’re not aware and appreciative of this. We also have laws protecting animals in transport i.e how much room they can have, and their handling at slaughter. Most cows in the UK would be pre-stunned, and so would not be conscious at bleeding.   I call this a defence of the dairy industry, but really it is not. The industry speaks for itself, go to any farm and they will actively be disproving these lies every single day. There are much easier ways to make a living than getting up at 4am, but they do it because they love their animals and are proud of the product they produce.

Part 1: Battery calves

Having wanted to start a blog for a while, a recent news article gave me the push (or the frustration) I needed to make a start. The article discussed the welfare of young dairy calves on a rearing farm which supplies these heifers to farms when they are old enough to be milked. To the unfamiliar, these ígloos’ are designed to house young calves for up to 8 weeks, with the cause of controversy being that these these calves appear to be older (the actual age of the animals is yet to be confirmed). Because of this some of the calves appeared to struggle to get into the igloos, and allegedly had sores on their back, although, no evidence of this was presented in the article. I think it is important to have some perspective when considering the facts that are presented:

Igloos are not ‘restrictive pens’; they are a widely used industry leading warm, comfortable, and easy to clean option for housing the baby calf, often in groups and then moving to individual pens. This gives the calf the best start in life, reducing their disease risk.

‘Confined without companionship’; whilst the cows clearly are confined, it is obvious in the pictures, that the calves have head access to neighbouring calves. Therefore they can see, hear, interact with and perform social behaviours typical to cows.

The benefits of individual penning are many, including preventing the spread of disease and ensuring each calf receives the correct amount of food.

It is very clear from the photographs that these heifers are healthy; bright eyes, shiny coats, ears erect, and a good body condition score and the pens are clean and well bedded.

As is evident from the photos, the reason the calves are struggling to access the igloos is due to the build up of straw in the pens, not necessarily because the calves are obviously too big/old for the pens.

I would never condemn a farm for using too much bedding! Whilst, clearly these pens should have been mucked out sooner, that does not translate to bad welfare, poor, lazy or cruel farming!

So, as far as I am aware, the only issue here is the age of the calves in these pens. This is against DEFRA regulations (unless the animals were on a vet certificate), so whilst unacceptable why could this be?:

Bovine TB breakdowns in the area- this would restrict the farm from selling or other farms from buying, which could lead to a build up in stock.

Equally, an usually large number of female calves born that year could lead to higher numbers than anticipated.

Lack of other suitable housing, perhaps the farm had anticipated turning these heifers out to pasture and bad weather has prevented this.

Farmer illness or age.

Now, I am not for one second saying any of these circumstances apply to this farm, or that any of them would justify poor welfare. But the next time you see an inflammatory media post, I ask you to think about farming in general, it is not black and white (we wish it were!), the factors affecting livestock vary dramatically from year to year, and without context, you are condemning a farm where livestock is evidently well cared for, when there could well be other issues going on behind the scenes.Personally, I believe this article should not have been published until the results of the Marks and Spencer audit were made clear. Rather than relying on hearsay and speculation from groups with an agenda, if welfare breaches were made, this is an issue for DEFRA, and I do not see anywhere in the article that they are involved. (UPDATE: TRADING STANDARDS HAS CONFIRMED THAT THERE WAS NO BREACH OF ANIMAL WELFARE). As for the Daily Mail, I find it disgusting, bordering on slanderous, that a national newspaper has sensationalised a few photographs with no true context into a full scale story on a ‘battery farm for calves’. Worse still, the article links to a completely unrelated ‘shocking video showing cows and calves beaten on a somerset farm’.So a a quick summary: Healthy young heifers which should have been mucked/turned out, were kept with too little room. Some heifers were too old to be in these hutches. Pictures used with little actual context to suit sensationalist agenda of both the newspaper and an animal rights group with no real evidence i.e ages/numbers of heifers in breach of rules. An overall attempt being made to prejudice the reader, but for good measure, adding a completely unrelated video of cows being beaten to ensure a fair and well balanced article.

So reader, you decide.