See The Hygiene Conditions And The Torture Your Food Is Getting

An animal-rights group, Mercy For Animals, released a video Tuesday showing an upstate New York farm worker lopping off a calf’s tail and burning off its budding horns as the animal moans and struggles frantically to escape, prompting a state lawmaker to propose that New York follow California’s lead in banning tail-docking for dairy cows.

The video was recorded in an undercover investigation at one of New York’s largest dairy farms, according to Chicago-based Mercy For Animals, a not-for-profit group that publicizes what it calls cruel practices in the dairy, meat and egg industries and promotes a vegan diet.

The video, posted on YouTube, shows workers punching and kicking cows to get them to move and dragging newborn calves from their mothers by one leg. After seeing it, Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat, proposed a tail-docking ban similar to one enacted last year in California.

The video also shows cows with various injuries, including swollen and festering sores and a prolapsed uterus, and several animals too sick or injured to stand.

Dairy officials say the practice of cutting off cow tails to prevent them from slinging manure is practiced on a small percentage of dairy farms. It is usually done without numbing, either with sharp shears or with a tight rubber band that stops the blood flow and causes the tail to die and fall off. Dehorning is done to prevent the animals from goring each other or their handlers.

The only person authorized to comment for Willet Dairy was out of the country and unreachable, said Laura Wells, the farm’s accounting manager. Attorney David Cook, who successfully defended the farm against a pollution lawsuit filed by neighbors several years ago, was also out of the country, his assistant said.

Assistant District Attorney Diane Adsit said in an e-mail that many of the actions shown in the videotapes “are commonly accepted practices used to protect both animals and farmers on large dairy farms.”

“While shocking to look at, these practices are not necessarily illegal,” Adsit said. If an investigation by the local SPCA leads the organization to file animal-cruelty charges, “we will prosecute anyone so charged,” she said.

Filed Under: Animal & Plant Life