Have your say: Lay off farmers

Look after your bobby calves.

Recently the public have been shown some graphic scenes of the treatment of bobby calves.
When I was share milking our dairy cow numbers increased to 250. There simply wasn't enough room in the calf pen on bobby calf day.

I rang the trucking company, they agreed that I would leave the bobby calves in the pen next to the loading race then it was a simple task of walking the calves up the loading race into the pen.

Trust me readers, a person who has been in the truck with those bobby calves to realise it's so warm.

The treatment of the bobby calves mustn't be bruising or the freezing works would complain of bruised livestock.

Here's another thought to ponder - what if the cartage firm had a pen that the calves could be loaded in and winched up via a starter motor.

I've seen this done loading a boat on to a trailer.

Once the calves had been offloaded onto the truck, the pen was folded up waiting for the next bobby calves.

With any business there's going to be anomalies. With dairy farming it's all about grass to milk.

It's becoming the norm to criticise effluent disposal, and the treatment of bobby calves.
Cut these guys some slack - the payout is going to be down this season, and there's talk of a severe drought.

Ian Ward
Onerahi

What do you think? Comment below.