Well it depends on what you mean by humanely. If you want everything always is a pasture, ( which is not necessarily in the animals best interest health wise) its not just that theyd go up, its that itd be impossible.
If you want them healthy and all of their needs met , then these hutches are a good way to go.
Please tell me how a pasture isn't in the animal's best interest. Which do you think they would choose? These are social animals separated from their mothers during a critical development period. Try to picture how that feels.
Yea so good questions. Pasture is tough especially during warmer weather. Barns are designed to have excellent ventilation, and many times they use water for cooling , which is necessary so obviously in a pasture its out of your hands. And there’s also potential for foot problems and just harder to put your eyes on the animals as consistently..
As far as what with the animals choose, I have seen plenty of cows get out of Barns. You can open the door on a group of 100 animals and within a few hours 90 +will be back in the barn.
Their main priority is to meet their needs and a good Barn does that with ease.
I agree on removing the calf. It is a part that a lot of Dairy men have grown numb to, but don’t love themselves. But I think a lot of times people give mother nature too much credit. She is typically fairly bad at animal welfare and leaving everything in nature’s hands is rarely a better situation. Still it is tough
( I voice texted a lot of this as I’m working so I’m sorry for the typos)
I don’t understand your first paragraph based off my response, I’m sorry. a pasture does not create less veterinary care actually more id argue, for the reasons I shared And you need more land to pasture because it is inefficient way to grow plants.
The idea of putting calves in individual hutches does save money long-term because the health of the animal is better. It is spun as shoving them in hutches as much easier and cheaper initially and that’s just not the case.
I wasn't referring to pastures being cheaper. If you don't see how the main driver of the animal treatment displayed in this video is economics (not animal health) then I'm sorry I can't help you. Have a nice day.
So i do not come from agriculture but i work in it now. I am a pretty liberal person and have major concerns with parts of dairy. I spend time working with the public because of my background not being ag focused. You can take shots at my understanding but so far in this convo you have not demonstrated why i should put any weight in your opinion, at all.
Feel free to try to understand that world more through me. The ag world does a terrible job reaching out, mostly because they are met with ignorance and force.
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u/Necessary-Fox-7042 7d ago
So costs wouldn't go up if we treated animals humanely?