California Legislature passes bill to ban tail docking of cows

[The Straight Story]

California Legislature passes bill to ban tail docking of cows

(9/4/2009)

Legislators in California have passed a bill with bipartisan support to ban tail docking of dairy cows. The California Assembly passed the bill Sept. 4, and the California Senate passed the bill on May 26. California Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez introduced Senate Bill 135 in February. The bill's supporters included the Humane Society of the United States, the California Veterinary Medical Assn., the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the California Farm Bureau and the California Cattlemen's Assn. If enacted, S.B. 135 would be the first state law banning tail docking in dairy cattle.

http://www.feedstuffs.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=F4D1A9DFCD974EAD8CD5205E15C1CB42&nm=Breaking+News&type=news&mod=News&mid=A3D60400B4204079A76C4B1B129CB433&tier=3&nid=0A21FEC9B02145538C2A18F6DD2127D6

[Taverner]

1. What's tail docking?

[melm00se]

4. i believe its

the removal or shortening of tails

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Yup.

It some farm animals, sheep for example, it's common and improves the health of the animal. Those short little tails you see on sheep have all been docked.

I'm not familiar with the practice in dairy cattle.

[alfredo]

5. Cutting the tail off.

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. The removal of 1/3 to 2/3 of the tail in calves destined for milking

the only reason for which is to make things easier (and safer from disease) for the person doing the milking, and a practice that began a hundred or so years ago when people were actually hand-milking.

Nowadays it's totally unnecessary. Probably was back then, but it's hard to say - diseases were a lot more rampant, too, back then.

[yodoobo]

18. I wonder why corporate farms do it then?

I know nothing about the business of milking cows, but it seems odd that a corporation would go through the expense of doing this if its unnecessary.

I got no dog in this argument. Just seems odd that they would do such a thing on a whim though.

[Wiley50]

20. Cows Shit On Their Tails

Cows tails hang straight down. it is the rare cow that bothers to raise their tails up and out over their back so they don't shit on it. Cows are lazy if you haven't noticed.

Because of their diet of mainly grass, cows have an almost constant case of the liquid shits. That's why you find mostly circular, flat "cow patties" out when walking in a cow pasture.

In dairy cows, milk inspectors look mainly for Fecal Contamination in the milk. they commonly order thousands of gallon batches of milk dumped and destroyed if they find an infinitesimal quantity of fecal matter in their sample.

Now think, all of you city folks: How many dollars do you pay for a single gallon of milk in a grocery store. Every time a poor family dairy farmer (and, yes, there are still hundreds if not thousands, although corporate farms have been coming on strong for a long while. I HATE ALL types of corporations too, just like many of you although many times they are necessary, building cars for instance) or even a corporate one) lose money every time the milk inspector makes them dump, say, 20,000 gallons of milk due to fecal contamination. Lot's of money.

Also, one of the ways people control a cow ( for instance to get the cow into a squeeze chute (the sides of the chute can be moved in to immobilize the animal so they can be checked for pregnancy, wormed, vaccinated or other medical procedures) is to grab the cow's tail high up near the top and raise it straight up in the air ( this prevents the cow from backing up if they don't want to cause pain or even break their tail. Cows get it immediately. and it induces them to move forward into the chute.

This applies, as well, in a dairy situation where the milker is putting the cow in a milking chute.

The less the cow struggles, the less pressure is applied . Veterinarians and family dairy farmers are rarely sadists.

I know all of these things because I grew up on a farm (not a dairy farm, but I went to school with plenty of dairy farmer's kids and heard the stories.

So it seems to me that the reason for cropping cows tails is to allow the shit to fall straight down (not on the lower tail where it is spread all over the cow every time a cow uses it's tail to swat at flies and that's ALL THE TIME)

Thank you if you made it through this lengthy explanation. Please reply if only to acknowledge you read it.

[lunatica]

21. I read the entire thing, and actually learned some things

Thanks.

[Wiley50]

23. No, Thank YOU! I hope others do too.

[yodoobo]

24. hey thanks!

lots of things I did not know :)

[SPedigrees]

10. Amputation.

I wish this practice, along with ear cropping, would be banned for all domestic animals in this country. It is illegal in most other civilized countries. The American Veterinary Medical Association (AMVA) just came out against it, to their credit.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Wow - didn't realize people still felt a need to do that. Most civilized countries have banned it.

[Wiley50]

22. In this case it's for practical, not acetic purposes like cropping ears and tails on pets n/t

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. They cut baby cows tails off?

I never knew that. How horrific.

I think cows around the world should unite and hit them with false advertising charges. Here they've all been trying out to become a California Happy Cow, not knowing the price they'd have to pay!

[thereismore]

8. I wonder how many people against tail docking had their sons circumcised.

:hide:

[The Straight Story]

9. They were circumcised while their mom's breast fed them at olive garden and smoked

:rofl:

[reflection]

29. No way! I'm calling Congress RIGHT F-ING NOW!

[SPedigrees]

12. Another barbaric practice that ought to be banned.

If some adult humans elect to lop off body parts (or engage in other "cosmetic" sugery) fine. But irreversible painful unnecessary surgery should be prohibited in children and animals.

[flvegan]

11. Once again, California leads the nation

in stepping forward to outlaw a barbaric practice.

[Toasterlad]

16. .

:thumbsup:

[Cali_Democrat]

17. Yet gays are still treated as second class citizens

No real leadership on that issue unfortunately.

[sinkingfeeling]

13. I've never in my life seen a cow with a docked tail! I raised cattle as a kid and lived most of my

life in the mid-west farm country. Is this a common practice in California?

[ourbluenation]

14. thats' great. now maybe they could restore funding to domestic violence shelters.

n/t

[Toasterlad]

15. Animals Have More Rights Than Gays In California

What a progressive state!

[ourbluenation]

19. and victims of dv. yeah us.

[Ignis]

25. Cows have the vote? The right to own property?

C'mon, let's keep the hyperbole to a bare minimum, shall we? :)

And because this is DU, I should probably mention that I campaigned against Prop 8 before the election: Signs, flyers, in-person campaigning (the legal distance) outside our local polling place, etc.

[Arugula Latte]

26. Have you ever seen the conditions factory farm animals are kept in?

You think animals there have lots of right?

Tail docking is just a drop in the bucket of misery and torture they endure.

OF COURSE people should have equal rights in all 50 states, but helping animals in one small way doesn't detract from those goals at all.

Do these animals look like they have rights to you? They live this way 24/7 until they are brutally slaughtered. Sometimes they don't die right away, and lie on the slaughterhouse floor in agony until they are finally put out of their misery.

[Tim01]

28. They castrate bulls, you know. ACTUAL castration, not figurative. nt

[Thothmes]

30. Dont know how it is done now but

years ago we would place a thick rubber band around the scrotum of a male calf. This cut off the blood circulation. In a week or so the scrotum just falls off.

[Tim01]

32. This will cause a higher rate of tetanus than cutting.

A tough call for me really. You already know what is involved in cutting.

[LeftyMom]

31. I am so tired of that stupid argument.

Treating animals better doesn't hurt gay people.

[Toasterlad]

34. Yeah, You're Right. And Gay People Shouldn't Be At ALL Bitter That Animals Get More Compassion.

Love your priorities.

[LeftyMom]

35. See, this is what I'm saying. You don't know fuck-all about my priorities.

I was doing storefront education last spring trying to keep what later became Prop 8 off of the ballot to begin with. I did voter recruitment, gave a speech in front of several thousand young people about why they needed to show up to vote against Prop 8, organized student volunteers to work call centers and walk precincts, handed out pro-marriage equality materials on campus and transported students to rallies both before and after the election.

And I'm an animal rights activist.

So yeah, one has nothing to do with the other. Well, except that that bullshit meme serves to scapegoat an overwhelmingly supportive community.

[Ignis]

36. Mormons? No, Prop 8 is the fault of HSUS, apparently.

Who knew? :shrug:

[LeftyMom]

37. Every animal mistreated is a step closer to marriage equality.

Yep, makes perfect sense. ;)

[Toasterlad]

33. Thank You All For Your Outrage On Behalf Of Animals.

If only you felt as passionately about human beings. But it's nice to know that when California gets around to castrating gays, you'll start giving a shit.

[Tim01]

27. Cows? Cows??? Are you sure it's cows???

Maybe it is a west coast thing. Sheep tail docking would be an East cost thing, I guess. But not cows?