Dearie me. Can I say again, hopefully for the last time, that I answered your question on 10.2.11.
Unfortunately, it seems it's not the answer you wanted, so you've risked making yourself look increasingly foolish by persisting in this petty attempt to undermine everything I say and disparage the experiences I've had.
Let's look at what's actually going on here.
- I made reference to an event from a spell I spent working on a small family dairy farm over 20 years ago, in response to your rather disingenuous suggestion that there is no cruelty in dairy farming, when clearly there is (supported by the reasons given by Tony Hague's useful input). Here's what (in part) I said:
- You subsequently accused me of being a vegan - as if it were some impediment to commenting on dairy farming - and you also cast doubt on my integrity and demanded that I reveal what qualifications I have in animal husbandry. You were unable to offer me any evidence that cows will not produce milk if they are 'dissatisfied'.I've worked on a small family dairy farm. All cows have their own personalities: some will nuzzle up and let you scratch their noses while others won't come within 30 feet of you. I've seen distraught cows calling for their missing young and I've tried to force feed colostrum (the first very protein- and antibody-rich milk a cow produces) into new-born calves only to watch some eventually die.
- I then gave you an honest account of my time on the farm, outlined my level of involvement and gave the answer to your question:
- You then accuse me of repeatedly not answering the question when I clearly already have. And this is where it gets interesting...I do not have any formal qualifications in animal husbandry, but no one needs qualifications to know when animals are in distress (such as just after forced separation following calving).
So for 18 months you were a farm labourer. You milked cows and you helped generally about the farm. That's fine with me but my question was what qualification have you got in animal husbandry and with your repeated refusal to answer the question means that you are not qualified to answer questions on the diseases and deficiencies in new born calves.
You describe trying to save a new born calf which was sadly one born that was unable to suckle and no matter what you did the calf died.
You seem to think that the fault was with the human tending the calf but it was a deficient calf and because it couldn't suckle it meant that you were on a looser from the off. I praise your efforts but you put it down to cruelty when the fault was with the calf and nothing to do with cruelty.
Had you known more about cattle you would have realized it.
That is why I posed the question.
JB.
- You accuse me of not being qualified to answer questions on the 'diseases and deficiencies' of new-born calves, despite the fact that you nor anyone else has asked me any such questions. You seem to have overlooked the fact that I was working with a father and son team who had been dairy farming all their lives. Did it occur to you that during what effectively became an 18-month apprenticeship, I might just have learnt something about dairy farming and the problems associated with livestock, including those affecting new-born calves? Did it cross your mind that it might just be possible that the farmer and his son were well conversant with the problems faced by new-born calves? Perhaps you will agree that not all 'qualifications' can be framed and hung on the wall.
- You somehow seem to know that the calf I referred to - despite the event taking place in a dark cowshed over 20 years ago - was 'unable to suckle'. It's funny Johnboy, but I don't recall you being there at the time, so how come you seem to know more about what happened than I do?
- You seem to know for certain that it was a 'deficient calf'. You say "...it was a deficient calf...", yet you weren't there. Had it occurred to you that the calf may not have been able to suckle because it found a plastic nipple totally alien when compared to the warm flesh of its mother's teat? Perhaps the calf was simply distressed?
- You say it was the calf's fault it died and it was "nothing to do with cruelty". Again, you appear to possess extraordinary powers of insight into an event at which you were not present (perhaps you will be willing to share the secret of how you do this with us all).
For some inexplicable reason you seem unable to simply accept that in that situation, where I was present, that I felt that the death of the calf (and others) might well have been as a direct result of the trauma it (and its mother) experienced following separation immediately after birth. That, to me, was cruel. That's why I recall it so vividly. This was my experience.
It's the height of arrogance for anyone not there to present the situation otherwise.
might I surggest that you do what I did a while a go,
