On the morning of 25th September while sabbing the Eggesford Hunt with our friends from South Devon Animal Rights near Coldridge, Devon we came across a distressed cow, visible from the road at Clotworthy Farm. Her legs were chained together to prevent her from doing the splits due to exhaustion and over-milking. Shockingly, this is standard practice in the UK. We found a farm worker who told us that she had milk fever (which is entirely preventable with proper diet management) and he would be seeing to her shortly.
We returned in the evening to check on her and found her in an even worse state. She was lying flat on her side, motionless and struggling to breathe. We tracked down the farmer, Richard Daw, and urged him to call a vet for her as she was clearly in a very bad way.
This video shows what happened next…
Clotworthy Farm is an Arla Dairy. Arla is a multinational dairy company and the largest producer of dairy products in the UK. We understand that they supply to major supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Asda and Aldi UK.
Clotworthy Farm has also been hit with bovine tuberculosis (bTB) and foot and mouth in the past. From the state of it, we are not surprised. Aside from welfare concerns, hygiene and biosecurity are clearly not a priority and instead they cull badgers on their land as if they are to blame for the spread of bTB.
Badgers are a protected species, but despite damning scientific evidence to the contrary, right now they are being scapegoated and killed in devastating numbers up and down the country as the cause of the spread of bTB. It’s time to hold farmers to account for poor biosecurity, poor welfare and the senseless murder of our precious and dwindling wildlife.
Kill the cull.
Ditch dairy.