The premature, suffering, dying animals lying in paddocks is a terrible sight and this practice needs to stop. It is only used to correct bad management and laziness in some farmers’ on-farm mating programmes.

If you don’t want a prolonged calving period, don’t leave the bull in so long. If you want the cows in calf so you can milk them, then carry them over through winter. Or sell empty cows and buy more come time to supply again. There is absolutely no need to carry on this archaic, barbaric practice, which I’m sure most vets having to undertake the job would also like to see outlawed.

This is something we don’t do and will not do in the future on our farm and I would like to say that from the farmers we know, the majority feel the same. So again, it is the few tarring us all with the same brush.

Come on guys, not to mention that it is our collective brand as New Zealand clean green products that this is detrimental too, but how do you sleep?

In the media, this type of farming is what ruins dairy farming’s reputation as a whole and we are constantly having the finger pointed at us for much smaller issues. So let’s not give anyone reason to farmer bash.

On the flipside, while we are usually portrayed as bastards, from reading a newspaper this morning, we now have the weight of the country’s economy rested on dairy farmers’ shoulders in the hope that the payout that is forecast will have us spending and giving much needed sales and optimism. Christ, you wouldn’t mind helping out if the odd nice story was portrayed on the evening news would you?