Are you sure that your cull cows aren't in calf?

摘要

The UK industry is bearing the tremendous cost of losing cows from the national dairy herd that needn't be culled - missing out on calves that are just weeks from being born. Shirley Macmillan reports. In 1990, more than 40,000 dairy cows in the UK could have been slaughtered unnecessarily - because they were, in fact, pregnant - and this wastage cost the industry an estimated pound 29 million. Researchers have shown that poor fertility is the main reason why cows are culled (30%) followed by low production and mastitis, yet abattoir surveys have revealed that 20% of culls are pregnant at the time of slaughter. "This means that 6% of culled cows were discarded for fertility reasons when in fact they were pregnant," says Somerset vet Dr Geoff Singleton, who decided to find out why.