I grew up on a dairy farm, was previously a dairy farmer and now rear calves and fatten them on a small, intensive beef farm.
I previously bought calves locally but as stock agents encourage more and more dairy farmers to sell feeder calves at auction, rearers have little choice but buy at sale yards.
We buy in good faith because although they appear healthy, calves that did not get adequate colostrum can’t be identified. We won’t know which are poor calves until a disease spreads through the pens and these calves start dying.
This year 14 of 59 apparently healthy calves I bought at the Cambridge Fonterra sale died.
The first to become catastrophically unwell was unable to walk off the truck. If it had been a bobby calf, Primary Industries Ministry vets would be at the slaughter facilities and prosecuted the dairy farmer, the stock firm and the trucking company.
The threat of prosecution has all but stopped repeat offenders from sending scouring, dehydrated, sick calves unable to stand or walk off trucks.
Instead, calves are sent to rearers and are tube fed electrolytes.
The calf died the next day. A faecal test diagnosed rotavirus but calves do not die of rotavirus when nursed appropriately. I believe this calf had not had sufficient colostrum when it was one day old and had no antibodies to fight the infection. Rotavirus then spread through the pens and more calves started rapidly dying. No amount of intervention including electrolytes, antibiotics, vet visits or nursing could prevent their deaths.
A similar scenario occurred with a salmonella outbreak a few years earlier. Many of the calves did not respond to antibiotics and electrolyes and rapidly died.
A year later calves sourced from a local farmer started dying while others in the same pen from another farm remained healthy. GGT levels on all the dying calves showed they had insufficient colostrum.
Calves fed inadequate colostrum cannot survive infections and should not be sold to rearers. To do so is fraud. These calves are fit only for slaughter but are sold to rearers for between $100 and $300 each.
Rarely are rearers reimbursed for the losses.
Stock firms usually deny the problem exists and insist all dead calves are paid for. Fonterra’s policy is to reimburse rearers for dead calves only if accompanied by a vet’s death certificate and only for calves that die within two days of purchase. This policy effectively safeguards the interests of Fonterra and vendors as vet visits, GGT levels and faecal tests for each dead calf are cost-prohibitive. They also know most calves die a week or more after purchase.
When a similar number of calves from the Reporoa sale yard died a PGG Wrightson manager claimed that as there were no other reports from rearers of dying calves all calves had to be paid for in full. He blamed the deaths on the rearing and threatened to notify the SPCA. Rearers are fed up with these accusations and for taking the blame for shoddy dairy farmers treatment of calves.
No calf should die because of a lack of colostrum but I believe many thousands do every year.
The Animal Welfare Act (Calves) 2017 monitors bobby calf deaths on dairy farms until slaughter but not deaths of feeder calves that are sold to rearers. No mention is made of colostrum in the Act. These omissions must be addressed urgently and MPI surveys extended to include feeder calf survival rates after sale to rearers.
MPI needs to widen the net and prosecute offenders who sell feeder calves that die from lack of colostrum. MPI vets already attend sale yards but if they could also attend rearers sheds during a disease outbreak and do GGT levels on dying calves then prosecute the dairy farmer for sending these calves to sale yards I believe the practice would stop overnight.
The vendors should also be required to reimburse the rearer for the calves, the transport, rearing and vet expenses.
I am sure competent dairy farmers and all calf rearers will support these initiatives to stamp out the unchecked neglect, abuse and death of feeder calves.
It is a disgrace which reflects badly on the dairy industry, it is fraud and animal cruelty and it must stop.
I encourage all calf rearers to speak out, write to you with their experiences and help hasten these necessary changes.
