Dirty stock ban
Dirty stock ban
angers farmers who are clean
FARMERS are concerned that they will be penalised under new rules banning dirty stock from abattoirs, even if the fault lies with hauliers, markets or the slaughterhouses.
At a meeting in Devon, organised by the NFU south-west region, Somerset farmer George Baker attacked the Meat Hygiene Service staffs lack of competence. They could not even read ear tags correctly on dead animals, he claimed.
Local MHS inspector Murray Gibson retorted that many cattle had no ear tags to read, but other farmers claimed the tags were being pulled out when mechanical hide-pullers were used without the area around the ears being slit first.
Beef producer Ian Scott, Cornwall, argued that from November to April in the mild, wet south-west, the amount of bedding needed to produce category 1 and 2 cattle – the only categories automatically accepted for slaughter – was way beyond normal good husbandry and welfare requirements and was commercially uneconomic.
So, all cattle sold during those months would have to be clipped. Surely it would be more sensible to clip them at the abattoir immediately after they had been stunned and before the knife went in, he argued. *