Dairy worker 'dismissed long before' shocking footage emerged

Video footage showed the mistreatment of bobby calves. Photo / Supplied

The slaughterhouse featured on TV One's Sunday programme has insisted that the worker accused of kicking, hitting and throwing calves, before bludgeoning them and slitting their throats was fired well before the show went to air.

The show featured hidden camera footage of a worker at Waikato slaughterhouse Down Cow mistreating bobby calves, as well as footage of calves left in crates without shelter, food or water for more than eight hours, and truck drivers roughly throwing calves into the back of trucks.

Initially Down Cow did not respond to media queries about the footage, but today management has issued a statement addressing the footage, saying "the seasonal worker accused of unsatisfactory work practices was dismissed long before the news item was shown on television.

"This applies to any employees who disregard company guidelines on workplace policy," the statement read.

Alongside slaughterhouse footage provided by activist group Farmwatch, secret recordings were taken of bobby calves being born during mid-winter frosts with no shelter; distressed cows having their calves taken away from them shortly after birth; calves that had been killed by farm workers and thrown on to dead-piles at farm gates; and truck drivers roughly throwing calves into the back of trucks.

Farmwatch investigator John Darroch said he saw deliberately cruel treatment of calves at about 15 of the 50 farms he secretly filmed across the Waikato. "We have been getting calls from people in rural communities - including farmers - for many years asking us to look into the treatment of bobby calves.

"But I had no idea that every time we posted a hidden camera we would get brutal treatment of calves. The scale and the frequency absolutely stunned me."

In its statement, Down Cow management expressed a wish to clarify that the trucks pictured picking up calves from roadside pens, with operators throwing calves into the rear doors, were not their trucks or operators.

"These trucks are taking calves to be slaughtered at the freezing works for human consumption.

"Roadside pen collection and the calves placed within those pens are the responsibility of the farmer, not Down Cow Limited, who prefer to pick up the calves from sheds where they are protected from the elements.

"Down Cow management believes that it would be more humane to kill these unwanted animals on farm and thus remove the stress of live transport but current regulation does not allow this to take place," the statement said.

The company provided a service to farmers "by relieving them of the unpleasant but necessary task of slaughtering injured and unwanted animals of all descriptions, including young calves. The meat from these animals then goes to pet food manufacturers for processing."