Emaciated laming cow with mastitis and teat cut off at auction

This cow - discovered at a livestock auction in Alberta - is representative of the condition most dairy cows are brought to auction in. She was laming badly, had acute mastitis (a painful bacterial infection of her udder) and had a teat cut off.

Diary producers don't like to treat mastitis as it means the cow must be pulled from the production line during treatment. Instead, many allow the bacterial infection to progress, often spreading to one or both hind legs, causing lameness.

Because cows have such a high centre of gravity, they need to be stable and strong on all four legs during transportation. If they are not, the go down and can be trampled to death by the others. Yet, cows laming as this one are routinely loaded onto trailers every day in Canada. Is this right and acceptable in a developed, humane nation as ours claims to be?

By bringing a cow to auction, the seller never knows who will buy her. Many buyers represent American slaughterhouses (such as Cargill) or Quebec (Colbex), meaning the cow will have a very long journey to slaughter ahead of her.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency's own studies have shown that the average dairy cow spends 3 weeks in transit from farm of origin to slaughterhouse, never assured of water at any of the stops. In fact, cows can legally be transported in Canada for up to 57 hours with no water or rest break. They may go for as long as 81 HOURS without food - that's longer than 3 days. Now imagine being a suffering cow - as this one surely was - being forced to undergo this.

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• Canada
• Alberta
• Quebec
• US
• 57
• 81
• food
• water
• rest
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• down
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• Twyla
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• osteoporotic
• BSE
• injured
• broken
• fracture

[strongness13]

Twyla can you provide data for your written statement? I know for a fact a ruminant would die if not given water for that duration of time. I'm pretty sure that a USDA DVM inspector would probably shut a place down if he saw a shipment of dead cows going to slaughter.

[TwylaFrancois]

@strongness13 See paragraph 5 of the Discussion section of a paper by CFIA entitled "Nonambulatory livestock transport:The Need for Consensus":

"In fact, the collecting of full truckloads of cull cows meant that the cows could spend up to 3 wk in transit before they arrived at a plant (15)." 15. Alberta Milk and Alberta Farm Animal Care Association, A Report on the Handling of Cull Dairy Cows in Alberta, May 2002. AFAC, Cambrian, PO Box 75028, Calgary, Alberta, T2K 6J8.

[TwylaFrancois]

I've received a number of comments on this video. I should clarify - the water provided for the cow was from us. Auctions rarely provide water or food.

You can directly help suffering animals like this cow by becoming a CETFA Volunteer Inspector. You can provide much needed water, warmth and kindness.

Go to the Cetfa website to learn how. Click on "Volunteer Inspectors" along the top of the page.

Thanks everyone!

Twyla

[DBoxler]

@TwylaFrancois

How can people do this it's heartbreaking.

[TwylaFrancois]

The only thing I can think is that the dairy industry has spent a lot of cash to hide the truth behind dairy.

The sad thing though is that these broken down cows are at every single auction in Canada. Auctions in ON in particular get a lot of tourists. I see those tourists staring stunned at the cows, then going off for ice cream cones.

I do think veganism is new for most Canadians though. We need to do a better job as consumers pushing for vegan products.

My thoughts anyway.

Twyla

[TwylaFrancois]

There's also unfortunately a great deal of profit made off these cow's broken bodies.

Dairy producers (like sow producers) make 25% of their income off these suffering cows.

Their meat is used in fast-food hamburgers. If there was no demand for this cheap meat, these cows could be killed on the farm rather than painfully loaded, put through an auction and transported for up to 3 wks to slaughter.

So even a conversion to  vegetarianism would have a huge impact on these cows.

[mischamies]

All this suffering because of ´humans´ desire for milk? Damn humans! Shame on you!

[strongness13]

Teat is cut off to prevent the spread of pathological Staph. aureus (among others), which is an infectious pathogen on dairies. If they don't do it, other cows may get infected, possibly become septic, or die. She's skinny because that's the breed (Holstein-Friesian). See her huge udder? It takes a lot of energy to produce milk to fill that massive thing, thus her skinny frame, compare her to an angus. Do research, work on a dairy, come on people.

[foxvalley560400]

i love milk i love cheese i love beef

[workhaterbloke]

@strongness13 Don't think that US is any different to this. Downer cows are pushed with forklift trucks, have water hosed into their noses and just about anything you can think of to get them moving toward the slaughter chute. Why don't you search E7 cattle farm on youtube and see?

[workhaterbloke]

@foxvalley560400 Think that's funny do you??? What a sick individual you must be.

[foxvalley560400]

it is clear you know nothing of the cattle dairy or slaughter buisness or the order of the food chain for that matter.

[foxvalley560400]

her teat cut offf lol

[strongness13]

@TwylaFrancois I understand the travel time is immense, and is a point of mitigation. However, your statement leads an individual to assume that they are going three weeks without water, an animal would die, especially a ruminant. In addition, a culled cow is far different than a downer cow. I don't really know the stipulations in Canada, but in the U.S. cattle must be non-downers (ambulatory) before slaughter is considered, and rightly so. The U.S. can thank BSE and Canada for that one.