Day 113 - 03 Apr 95 - Page 11
1 extreme would be a Belgium Blue, for example.
2
3 Now, the calf, the heifer -----
4
5 MR. MORRIS: Sorry, before you continue ------
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I just say this, what I am looking for is
8 what you have to say from your own experience and
9 investigation and studies as to practices which could be
10 construed as cruel or distressing to the animal. A bit of
11 educative background may be necessary to make that clear,
12 but that is really what you should be directing yourself
13 at. So, in so far as you are, in effect, invited by
14 Mr. Morris to say what you want about things, I would be
15 very grateful if you bear that in mind, Dr. Long.
16 A. Thank you very much. What I have underlined at the
17 moment is separation of the cow and the calf.
18
19 Q. I understand that, but I interrupted you at the stage I did
20 because I needed to understand what you are saying about
21 the next stage, or it may be if the selection process does
22 bite on the topics I have raised, tell me about it, if it
23 does not, then you might be able to move on to the next
24 thing which did.
25 A. Yes, I am coming on to that. I have left the male side
26 aside at the moment. The heifer, she is now a maiden
27 heifer actually. She may go into the beef side, but let us
28 suppose she goes on into the dairy side.
29
30 MS. STEEL: Before you go on, are there any welfare
31 implications? You mentioned about the narrow pelvis. Are
32 there welfare implications in relation to that?
33 A. Yes, I was going to come to that when our specimen cow
34 had to come to parturition.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Right. Go back to your maiden heifer and
37 tell me anything relating to her.
38 A. Yes. She is kept on the farm until she comes into
39 estrous. She comes into estrous at about the age of 14
40 months. By that time she is about three-quarters of her
41 mature weight. So, if you translated that, this is a
42 welfare problem, because if you put her in calf at this
43 very early stage -- you have to remember, if you thought of
44 that in human terms, it is rather like putting a
45 schoolgirl, young schoolgirl, who has just passed through
46 menarche into, well, you are making her pregnant -- that is
47 a stress for the first thing.
48
49 Now, the cow, the heifer, has a pregnancy of about nine,
50 nine-and-a-half months. So, she delivers her calf and then
51 this question of the difficult calving comes up. One can
52 get a high proportion of difficult calvings because one has
53 so much beefiness bred in. One can use artificial
54 insemination to play genetic games, really. One bull's
55 ejaculate can be used for thousands of cows. So, one bull
56 like "Sunny Boy" in Holland is the father of numerous
57 calves. He, in fact, is begetting a calf every 20 minutes
58 -- or has been.
59
60 So, there are the problems with calving and the beginning
