Shocking Discovery Limerick

The industry?

is this a single farm? Hardly seems to be an industry problem based on that screen shot.

***** Text from Irish Times *****

The Department of Agriculture has begun an investigation at a Limerick farm after almost 400 calves were found dead.

The animals — predominantly Friesian and Jersey type bull calves — were discovered on the farm in the south of Limerick.

It is understood that the calves died due to a variety of issues, including disease and malnutrition. The discovery was made following a complaint from a neighbour over a smell coming from the farm.

Last year, 270 dead calves were discovered on a farm specifically set up as a calf rearing unit in northeast Galway. The calves had died as a result of disease and malnutrition and the Department launched an investigation into the matter. At the time, the incident was viewed as one of the biggest animal welfare incidents in the history of the State.

Animal welfare regarding Friesian and Jersey dairy bred bull calves has been an ongoing concern for the dairy industry in Ireland which prides itself on welfare standards. Typically dairy bull calves are low value animals, with poor potential to fatten for the beef trade due to their dairy genetics. Roughly 200,000 of these types of calves are exported every year to veal farms in continental Europe while those that remain are sometimes sold for as little as €5 each.

Since the abolition of dairy quotas in 2015, the number of dairy cows in the country has been increasing.

Figures from the Department of Agriculture show that there are nearly half a million more calves born to dairy dams every year — an increase of 46 per cent since 2011.

That's the first thing that should be thought of but straight away the media have already decided what happened.

Did anyone hear the headlines on the 6 o clock news on Radio 1? RTE are turning into the greatest shower of cu*ts in this country, the lowest of the low.

Whatever the situation - and I won't go into speculation, but there's something well wrong in the industry when this can happen.

It's doubtful that it's an accident that these were dairy bulls worth next to feck all and not high value stock.

This is the type of situation which makes the public turn against farmers.

We know that there's differences between us and how we manage animals but nobody outside the industry is interested in specifics.

They just see 400 dead baby calves.

To be honest, as a farmer myself, it's hard to look beyond that and make excuses or see any valid explanation.

I completed concur with you. RTE seems to have concluded the investigation and all calves dead are bulls. Fair play to them.

Health issues or mental health issues.

Heard the report on RTE this evening, no anti livestock agenda apparent. Just reported how it was discovered and the numbers involved

How can we comment on something when we know nothing of the circumstances - do you imagine we are all familiar with this case

Strange how 400 animals can just be let die like that. What about all this Traceability we hear about.

I had an inspection last year, 2 animals out of 95 had 1 tag missing. jazus yourman nearly wrote a book about it in for the report even though I had th replacement tags.

I must move the farm to limerick

It will be interesting to see if the farm was Bord Bia approved.

A high profile case thats in the news is fair game for discussion I would have thought.

Should we just ignore it then ?

What details are missing that you would rather we not discuss the issue ?

This is slightly different to the pro's and con's of low value dairy bred bulls to be honest .I would imagine the stock in question were indeed that type but 400 dead calves is taking the p@@s if thats the numbers involved .No problem waiting to see the eventual outcome but not willing to discuss it is a different matter entirely .Whether we like it or not stuff like this really doesn't help agriculture's image especially after the fallout from all the carbon nonsense over the Summer .