Dry cow management is key
OPINION: We need to stop treating the dry period as just a rest between lactations and understand that it’s a significant biological reset that impacts the health and productivity of the next lactation.
Ray Ernest Nairn,56 was sentenced in the New Plymouth District Court yesterday after pleading guilty to eight charges under the Animal Welfare Act, following a successful prosecution by the Ministry for Primary Industries.
MPI regional manager, animal welfare and NAIT compliance, Joanna Tuckwell says Nairn is an experienced farmer and knew what his welfare responsibilities to his animals were and he failed them.
“Some of these animals were sick, emaciated and in such poor condition, the only option was to euthanise them. When we find evidence of deliberate animal neglect, we will take action and put the case before the court," says Tuckwell.
In November 2021, an MPI animal welfare inspector and veterinarian inspected Nairn’s 230 cattle following a complaint about their physical condition. They found some animals were severely underweight and in poor health because of a lack of grass cover and supplementary feed.
Several animals had to be euthanised including a heavily pregnant and emaciated Friesian cow. Another cow that was suffering from a longstanding mastitis infection was also euthanised. The veterinarian noted Nairn had continued to milk this cow twice daily, despite it having an open and discharging wound. Seven other underweight dairy cows were found to be receiving insufficient feed to maintain milk production without further weight loss occurring. Furthermore, a severely lame cow was sent to a meat processing plant following treatment.
During the inspection, MPI animal welfare inspectors directed Nairn to dry off some cows to enable the animals to recover to a healthy weight and prevent further suffering. Animal welfare inspectors returned to the farm a month later to check Nairn was following the directions and found there were 2 cows that had not been dried off.
"Nairn was directed to stop milking these cows, which he didn’t do, causing further suffering. Most farmers do right thing for their animals – providing sufficient and quality feed and timely veterinarian treatment. It’s disappointing that we had to again direct Nairn to stop milking these cows for the sake of their welfare," Tuckwell says.
Along with the home detention and disqualification sentence, a special condition imposed by the court was that Nairn must undertake treatment and counselling as directed by the Department of Corrections. He was also ordered to pay $4,597.13 in veterinarian costs.
