Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Even if it's more expensive and it doesn't work as well as conventional semen, surely it's the only answer to this issue. The issue being that there seems to be nothing farmers can do with the male dairy calves. They're not worth any money. Transporting them (as seen on the programme last night) shouldn't be an option. It's incredibly cruel. Can anyone propose an answer to the issue of too many male dairy calves that doesn't involve live exporting?

Their is plenty of continental calves exported too, their not actually worthless, its the period from feb-april that they are, 40-70 euro is paid by shippers for later born calves, sexed semen won't solve any issues their is still going to be a million plus calves needing to find a home and circa 700k of these in the space of 6 weeks that's the issue, compact calving as advocated by teagasc has the whole system at breaking point in the spring period

Calves being taken from their mother's is not actually a big issue at all. The calves are as calm as a breeze and actually thrive really well under these conditions with farmers caring for them extremelywellinthevast majority of cases. The problem I see is the length of time between feeds for these calves. A lairage at Rosslare might just help alleviate that.

Thanks. I'm not against farmers at all. I don't disagree with killing animals for food, but I disagree with the way they are often treated before dying. There's no need for cruelty. I always assumed there was very little, if any, cruelty involved in dairy farming but the programme last night was an eye opener. I think a lot of people will be shocked to learn how male dairy calves are discarded and treated so badly. It's certainly helpful for farmers to engage with concerned consumers.

Only a select few bulls are available as sexed. Not all are sexed

I think what was meant by the footage not being so bad was because the worst of the footage was old stuff from NZ and France. As someone pointed out the must have had thousands of hours of footage and the worst seemed to be throwing and kicking calves on a couple of occasions, that's not to belittle that, it 100% shouldn't but its obvious the people doing that aren't suited to handling calves and shouldn't be at it. Those are individual mistakes rather than systemic issues.

On calves being removed from their mother, that is the nature of dairy farming. Some farmers will disagree but I find separating them at birth to be the least stressful option, the calf only knows the farmer as their provider and the cow moves on quickly. People try to transpose human emotions onto animals but that doesn't work.

I don't know the regulations but the impression I got from the show last night was that it was just a 1 hour stop, with the calves staying in the trailer, which seems pointless. IMO the issue is with the age of the calves, a four week old calf would be much better able for a long journey, could already be moved to once a day feeding and could probably be fed some ration easier than milk.

I'd agree with you on sexed semen, the talk that the conception rate is worse is a red herring, its 60% v 50%, that dip isn't going to kill any farmer., or throw out their calving pattern significantly. We do all our cows that we plan to breed off with sexed semen, one round and then everything else gets a beef bull. It means we're fairly confident of how many dairy replacements we'll have and we don't have much of an issue with dairy bull calves, although the sexed straws are only 90% accurate. Anecdotally it is being more widely used but there are still plenty who will make excuses not to use it.

Yes when there's lads complaining of crap calf prices in march delaying calving a few weeks will give a better price. Too much relies on boats going. Even calving a few weeks earlier, possibly in January would make a difference

using a stick on calves has been illegal for the past 2 years

I refused point blank to watch that program last nite cause of the media outlet it was coming from.not justifying any cruelty but I worked for over 15 yrs in a mart from 2000 to 2015 and never saw any over the top stuff going on.yes I used the stick when I needed to in the bullock sorting pen especially at the weanling sales time of the yr.

last night’s hit job by the truth matters station that is rte is part of the woke leftie/green agenda to destroy an industry and the vast majority of people who do their **** best everyday looking after their livestock.

I do things fairly ok but this yr I ran into utter catastrophe.an outbreak of rotavirus that ran tru about 25 calves from mid March to end of April.I’ll admit I lost a fair shot of them calves but not for the want of trying my best to keep them alive and hydrated.fran mcnulty won’t show that side of what farmers do.

I appreciate all of the replies and information. It certainly sounds like its more complicated than simply using sexed semen but I do think it should be a bigger part of the solution. I think those upset about last night's programme should realise that people just want information and truth. I'm not out to demonize farmers at all. It's just obvious that the way the industry is operating isn't acceptable as far as animal welfare is concerned. That doesn't mean that farmers don't look after their cows. It just means that we should find a better way, as a society. I got the answers I needed and thank you to those who answered my questions. I hope sexed semen is used more widely and that live exporting is banned in the future. Its far too inhumane.

There wasn't a full picture shown last night in order to build a truth. Pictures from New Zealand and Europe used to paint Irish farmers badly. All the footage from Ireland was outside the farm gate, yet it's farmers who are taking the flack today. It was the government or advisory bodies who pushed all and sundry into dairy and forgot about the calves. It was the same who promoted a NZ model for Ireland - a model where bull calves are killed once born on the spot and whose environmental impacts wouldn't get within an asses roar of being legal here. The programme last night was excellent to highlight some issues and I hope, as I think we all do, that a stop is put to it immediately. That inspectors inspect, and prosecutors prosecute. There needs to be conversations around a joined up dairy and beef programme for agriculture, that value is put by processors on dairy beef, that compact calving plan is not sustainable and relying on export for surplus calves has to end.

As someone who didn't watch the programme- was the NZ / Europe footage stated as so, or was it done in an attempt to pretend this was Ireland?

That program last nite was due to be shown pre the whole covid hysteria that went on.amazing how it got an airing at this time with Renault telifis eireann in a spot of bother

Exporters normally dont buy crap calves though. They're very picky here what they take. Have to be a specific weight etc