One of New Zealand's biggest corporate dairy farmers, Tasman Farms, says criticism of its animal welfare standards in Tasmania arose after cold, wet weather killed several hundred calves and cows.
General manager Colin Glass said the deaths of 200 calves and 55 cows needed to be seen in the context
of a combined herd of 11,000 animals calving during a period of abnormally cold and wet winter weather.
"It does need to be put into context," he said. "As young stock are born, you do have high death rates of young stock until weaning, compared with what you would expect later on. It's a fact of dairy farming."
The deaths were not out of line with previous experience on the property.
Glass said he did not want to shy away from the fact that the Tasmanian Agriculture Department and other animal welfare authorities were concerned.
"We worked through those concerns quite closely with them, view the allegations very seriously, and have put measures in place to immediate rectify the animal welfare issues they raised."
Glass said from Tasmania - where he met animal welfare officials last week - that the 11 dairy farms on the company's historic Woolnorth property in north-west Tasmania had been hit by terrible weather over two months, just when the dairy cattle were calving.
The company had a further 30,000 non-dairy animals - many of them young cattle being reared for bull beef - on the same property, but had not suffered similar losses with those animals because they were stronger.
But RSPCA inspector Frank Bingham said investigations at one of the dairy farms had found the farm overstocked and cattle underfed and overworked.
"It is as bad as it gets," Bingham said.
An inspection found 97 dead calves and 55 dead cows dumped in a 60m section of bush. We found things like dead calves in pens in a shed and they had been dead for days."
A further 100 dead calves had been seen in sheds or paddocks.
About 1200 to 1400 cows were being milked only once a day because their condition was so poor, and at least a further 600 had their milking reduced.
- NZPA
