Survey finds practice is generally acceptable, but the age of the calf when it is slaughtered influences opinions
What happens to surplus or unwanted calves in the dairy industry and what is the public’s attitude to that?
Those are questions on a recent survey conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia, who wanted to assess public attitudes toward how surplus dairy calves are managed and how calf management practices influence these attitudes.
A questionnaire was distributed online in Canada and the United States. In total, 998 people participated: 502 in Canada and 496 in the U.S.
“To our knowledge, ours is the first study suggesting that providing calves with a reasonable length of life is a key primary concern for the public when faced with the issues of early-life calf slaughter and cow-calf separation together,” said Marina von Keyserlingk, NSERC Industrial Research Chair in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at UBC.
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“However, our findings also indicate that the quality of the calf’s life was also important and having access to the dam was central to calves having a good life.
“Hence, when managing the fate of surplus calves, the dairy industry should not dismiss the issue of cow-calf separation but, rather, acknowledge that this issue may also be contentious and that solutions may not be straightforward.”
Von Keyserlingk wrote in the report that participants were generally accepting of the use of excess calves for meat production. However, calf age at slaughter was a dominant factor influencing participant attitudes.
Slaughtering calves at a very young age is a practice that is generally inconsistent with public ideals because the intrinsic value of the animals’ lives is not respected. In addition, she wrote that public perceptions toward other management practices should be considered including the importance of access to pasture as a means for animals to roam and graze.
“As awareness grows, the practice of early cow-calf separation will be increasingly questioned by the public,” she said. “Failure to begin discussions on this topic will increase the risk that future decisions about this topic will be made in the absence of the farmer.”
From her conversations with other dairy industry representatives, it was clear that awareness of the challenges associated with surplus calves is growing in a number of countries.
“In particular, we are seeing lots of traction on this topic in countries such as Australia where it is common to send surplus calves to slaughter before they are 14 days of age,” she said.
“I have been interviewed on the topic of surplus calves by the media in Australia. There have also been a number of newspaper articles on this contentious topic in Europe, so I truly believe it is not a matter of if the public becomes aware, just a matter of when.”
Currently, she said, in Canada and the United States there is little awareness of what happens to surplus calves. Most of them are either slaughtered as veal at less than six months of age, while some live for about 18 months before being slaughtered as dairy beef. However, she stated in the report that, with steadily declining veal consumption in Canada and the U.S., the demand for surplus calves is decreasing.
Calf slaughter is considered by those outside the industry as an ethical issue and something the public at large would likely reject if the practice was more widely known. Von Keyserlingk said that euthanasia of healthy calves is banned in Denmark and other countries have committed to banning the practice in the near future including the United Kingdom and Ireland.
In addition to this study, which was published in the Journal of Dairy Science, a similar UBC study, published in the same journal, explored veterinarians’ perceptions on the care of surplus dairy calves. In this study, von Keyserlingk and her team looked at 10 focus groups with a total of 48 veterinarians from eight provinces.
Two major themes emerged from this study. The first was the challenging aspects of calf management including colostrum and feeding management, transportation, options for euthanasia with suggestions for humane solutions, and ways to improve the calves’ economic values given the connection between poor calf care and low economic value of surplus animals. The second theme was the veterinarian’s role in providing advice to dairy farmers.
It was stated in the report focused on veterinarians’ perceptions that there is an apparent industry-wide reluctance to talk about surplus calf issues. However, participants in the study emphasized the importance of collaboration and discussion in developing solutions to the problem. Those in the industry should talk to each other and come to agreements that are a “win-win” for everyone.
A key take-away highlighted in the researchers’ report on public attitudes was that failure by the dairy industry to provide assurances that excess dairy calves have a reasonable length of life, and that this life has purpose, places the industry at odds with public values. The researchers concluded that, to maintain support among the public, the dairy industry must investigate avenues to ensure that calf management practices resonate with current societal standards and expectations.
Mitigating the issue of surplus calves and the attendant problems could rely in part on a different approach to breeding decisions, such as the use of sexed semen to reduce the number of surplus male calves and the use of beef semen to increase surplus calf values in the marketplace. By selectively deciding on a breeding strategy, more could be done to both reduce the surplus problem and improve public perceptions.
“I know that many farmers are aware of the situation and many in Canada are now actively looking at alternative breeding strategies such as using a combination of sexed semen and beef semen, the beef semen resulting in a higher valued calf that is purpose bred for the meat industry,” said von Keyserlingk. “This is a great step forward and the proactive farmer will be looking to continually adapt as societal values evolve.”
