MONTPELIER, Vt. -Cutting off part of a cow’s tail is common practice among Vermont dairy farmers. They do this to keep cattle and milk free from manure, but some want to cut out the cutting.
Dairy farmers cut or dock the tail of a cow when it’s young to produce clean milk. But animal welfare groups say docking is inhumane and want to pass a bill to prohibit tail docking dairy cows.
Cutting off a cow’s tail is common on many Vermont farms. It’s called docking.
“When they’re milking the cows, the cow don’t get their tail into the manure and splatter it all over where they’re going to be milked,” said Keith Gray of Gray Farms.
Gray removes the tails of his herd of 1,400 cows. He says docking provides clean, quality milk for customers. But some animal rights activists and state lawmakers want to prohibit docking dairy cows.
“It’s incredibly cruel, these animals need their tails for a variety of reasons, fly avoidance behaviors is one. You have animals that all of a sudden don’t have an defense against flies,” said Joanne Bourbeau of the Humane Society of the United States.
Those against docking say there’s no medical benefit to it for cows. They also argue there’s no science to support docking produces cleaner milk. We asked Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington County, who’s sponsoring the proposed bill to prohibit docking to comment, but he declined. Supporters of docking say they cut below the bone and causes the animal little harm and flies aren’t a big deal.
“We use fly spray and what not and our cows are inside most of the time, so it doesn’t really affect them,” said Gray.
Dairy farmer Mark Magnan stopped docking his cattle four years ago. He says if the cow’s tail is trimmed, it still keeps the cow and the milk clean.
“Docking tails is probably associated with clipping ears on dogs I think. I think people think it’s not necessary,” said Magnan.
There have been bills about prohibiting docking dog tails in Vermont; none have passed. The Humane Society honored Vt. Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn for his work passing Vermont’s civil forfeiture bill in 2014, strengthening animal cruelty laws for household pets.
“We’ve been very careful to make sure that we limit it to that and then the agricultural piece is left to the Department of Ag,” said Flynn.
The Department of Agriculture enforces other laws about seizing abused livestock. Animal welfare advocates will continue to push the antidocking bill forward in Vermont.
“Being in a dairy state we don’t expect this to be an easy issue, but it’s one we think is very important and we’re moving forward with hopefully making some advances there,” said Bourbeau.
Proponents of prohibiting docking included in their proposal it’s OK to cut the tail of a cow if it’s to relieve pain or save its life. The proposed penalty for docking otherwise would be up to a $500 fine.
Source: WCAX.com