Crafers’ Starving Calves
Bernard Hickey has an exclusive at interest.co.nz on the Crafers.
A video of starving calves is above.
I recommend people go read the story, which is pretty shocking. Extracts:
New Zealand’s biggest privately held dairying operation allowed dozens of calves on one of its massive farms on North Island’s central plateau to slowly dehydrate to death earlier this month, triggering a MAF investigation but no prosecution. …
Poor management and the pressures of massive debts obtained during rapid expansion meant this farm was so poorly managed that none of the staff trained the calves to drink milk, allowing them to die of dehydration in a muddy pen even though their trough was often full.
The Crafers have been prosecuted numerous times on various issues such as releasing effluent into waterways.
After interest.co.nz obtained the video, producer Bryan Spondre and I visited the farm where the calves had been kept to find out more. When we drove up next to the calf shed we were confronted by farm manager Sam Webb. He told us to: “Get the f**k off this property. You have no right to be here.”
Bryan started taking photographs of the shed and Sam Webb manhandled him back into our car before swearing abuse and grabbing at Bryan’s camera.
“I’ll take both of you bastards out,” he yelled.
Webb then punched Bryan through the open window of the car door. The punch was so hard it dislodged Bryan’s contact lens. We drove off and the picture published to the left shows Webb yelling at us as we left: “F**k off you c**ts.”
Where’s the picture of the black eye? 
Go read the full story, and the questions Bernard has for MAF and Fonterra.
An excellent piece of investigative journalism.
September 28th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Is [deleted by DPF as abusive]
September 28th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Disgusting treatment of animals, but we don’t hear the battery hens etc. Only if you listen to dedicated animal rights activists like Sue Kledgely.
September 28th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
The Crafars are a blot on the landscape the sooner the scum go bankrupt the better.
September 28th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Congrats to Bernard and Bryan. A great piece of investigative journalism. Another example of the “new media” doing what the mainstream media repeaters are too lazy or incompetent to do.
I suspect, however, that Crafar isn’t the first person (or the last) to have wanted to give Bryan Linkwhore Spondre a swift jab. He appears to have something of a reputation for rabble-rousing.
Oh, and tautokai.baxter, this is kiwiblog, not a 24/7 advert for your looney green party. If you want to talk about the wonderful and virtuous Sue Kedgley, go do it over on the greens’ site. Don’t hijack threads here…please.
September 28th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Im sorry Alistar just spreading the truth to the ones that so desperatly need it, i.e you.
September 28th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
That footage is sick.
MAF have been covering up animal abuse for as long as I can remember.
September 28th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
It’s bloody sad when animals are treated this way. I wouldn’t show this clip to my wife as she would probably start crying, you see she raises the calves around here and fusses over each and every one of them. All the farmers I know take pride in producing the best animals they can, it makes no sense to starve your young stock as they are your future. These guys deserve to lose the lot, it’s called greed and unfortunately there are a few farmers out there now realising they have biting off more then they can chew. But then farmers are not the only ones prone to greed.
September 28th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
This is the disgusting underbelly of the new corporatised dairy farm where animal welfare is relegated below cost benefit,production per labor unit, per hectare,pbit etc and the perps have yet to learn how much more efficiently a contented, healthy, well fed and warm animal will perform. Management deficiencies can occur but in most cases a manager will have a greater empathy with the stock than a poorly informed owner. All too often a manager will be prosecuted as he will suffer a lessor penalty( may or may not be compensated) than an owner. I know of a case last year where the problem of abused stock was solved by the owner sacking the manager who had only just come on board before the inquiry opened.
However the prosecution process is blighted by the difficulty of gathering evidence and the high cost as opposed to a likely penalty and cost recovery.
A recent case in North Canty resulted in a negotiated settlement as an option when the perps in that case should have been prohibited from owning any stock ever again instead the defendants received what may look to some a severe financial penalty when IMO it was peanuts. They were serial offenders
At least the pigs in the King expos`e were legal even if unacceptable to some in the way it was presented. Of course a pig disturbed at night will squeal as normally any disturbance usually results in a feeding opportunity. I accept that it was a beatup to all intents and purposes and left Mr King with zero credibility.
This latest case is ongoing and will bring a lot more grief yet.
I agree that the exit of the Crafars will not be mourned by many in the industry
September 28th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
hey all .. lets not do what Red Alert and the Std do and try and kick out those who have alternative views regardless how stupid they are.
Any animal abuse needs sorting and these people have over extended themselves to the extent that they are stuffed.
This must have been seen coming a long time ago.
We need to get into a mindset that both people and animal abuse is unacceptable.
September 28th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
The problem here is the farm manager hasn’t organised his calf rearing system to feed the bobby calves. As a dairy farmer myself I would have to ask why? Is it due to incompetence/inexperience on the part of the manager – if so he needs to be looking for a new job and be prosecuted by MAF. If however he was following instructions from his bosses then they also should be held accountable.
Also it is possible that the labour costs have been held down due to the lower payout and debt burden and there simply wasn’t any allowance made for bobby calf feeding-which is flippin nuts.
We milk 600 cows and my missus and I sweat our backsides off rearing calves and seeing crap like this is b@#$%y disgusting.
We take pride in seeing our bobby calves learn to drink and grow strong even if they only live for 4 days.
If there are any calves that get sick and can’t be treated, a merciful bullet is the appropriate way to put them down and then remove them to a burial hole so that they don’t spread their sickness around.
Also notice that the calf shed has no suitable bedding on the ground (sawdust etc.) and the calf that had a runny crap likely suffered from scours or rotovirus.
I would have thought that the video was sufficient evidence for MAF to prosecute…friggen mad, or at least to interview the farm manager and staff on the farm to get a better picture of what happened.
September 28th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Good on Bernard and Bryan. About the last thing i expected of two people who’s blog is focused on finance issues though.
September 28th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Usually someone condemns the video-takers in this sort of thing as illegal trespassers too…
September 28th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
The Crafers just made it to the top of my shit list, these vermin are the lowest form of scum imaginable.
September 28th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Good on Bernard and Bryan. About the last thing i expected of two people who’s blog is focused on finance issues though.
Bernard’s a pretty thorough guy, by the looks of things, so he was probably investigating the Crafer farming empire, as a matter relating to NZ’s largest industry. Thorough investigation and then not being afraid to stand by the results (even the unexpected ones) is a valuable attribute. I wish more people had it.
September 28th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
“..fusses over each and every one of them…”
and does she ‘fuss over’ them when sending them to their (extremely) premature deaths..?
bloody hands bob..?
or when they scream for/keen for their mothers..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
September 28th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Phool
On this subject and this subject only, you and I agree.
However, you do the cause more fucking damage by berating everybody with your constant demands for compulsory veganisim and your incessant brow beating of those who do not share your belief’s.
This battle is one that will take time, first and foremost we have to eliminate cruelty, by going on the way you do you alienate some of the people who may well be sympathetic to what we are trying to achieve.
So for fuck sake, will you tone it down please.
September 28th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
The absolutely critical thing here is much bigger than the Crafar issue. I would have thought that intensive factory farming has the potential to decimate the dairy industry in particular and NZ’s clean green image in general.
Let me say I have no experience of farming of any type at all and therefore rarely comment on it, however I have never liked the drive by Fonterra to list publicly. I was concerned when I read that they plan on 2.5% productivity increase ad infinitum. I felt uneasy when I heard that there are less and less farms each year in NZ and the ones that are there are just getting bigger. That many are basically groups of investors who wouldn’t know one end of a cow from the other, they are nothing more than speculators and no better than the same greed merchants who brought the financial sectors around the world to their knees. (where they still are.)
If this video is even a small example of practices that are becoming more commonplace then this country is in deep shit. Other than tourism and agriculture this country is a basket case. If that sort of footage becomes widespread around the world and is proven to be more than an isolated case the ramifications are enormous.
I’m not talking from an animal rights aspect, I love eating meat and I have no problem with normal farming practices. (Fuck you philu, don’t try and ram your philosophy and lifestyle down anyone’s throat.)
I see this from a straight business perspective and if I was CEO of NZ inc I would be very, very concerned. I would be shutting this down fast and then seriously investigating to make sure it isn’t more widespread.
People need to realise that other countries already do intensive farming, watch what happens in China when they get their heads around it. NZ can’t compete with on that sort of scale. This could be bad shit.
Side Show Bob, say something to make me feel better.
September 28th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Reading further down the piece from Hickey, Crafar mentioned possibly selling the lot as a single entity to Chinese concerns. I hope that is a veiled threat and not the thin end of the wedge. Won’t this be a great country to live in if the major source of income is in overseas ownership. Right.
September 29th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Hickey has also written to Fonterra and David Carter, he really is doing a very thorough job.
September 29th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
“Good on Bernard and Bryan. About the last thing i expected of two people who’s blog is focused on finance issues though.”
Considering milk exports are one of the few things the NZ economy still has going for it cows and their welfare have become a finance issue.
September 29th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Yeah Richard, George up top alluded to the same thing, and you’re both right. Evidently it’s the welfare aspect is an ‘image thing’.
September 29th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
That guy is a creep con-artist if I ever saw one, the farm owner I mean. Is he Australian?
“I love cows and I will die for cows!”
Please, nice performance for the TV but I wonder whether the cows love you, I mean late at night in the cowshed, is it truly consensual?
July 28th, 2010 at 10:02 am
If the person whom took this video was aware of the state of these calves how come he did not feed them. Instead he stood by and filmed them suffering. How long did this person know this was going on before they decided they needed to “help”?
Im sorry but If I saw any calves suffering I certainly would not stand around to video it, I would be in there feeding the calves and cleaning the pens not standing there with a damn recorder while they continued to suffer!!! And yes I am a calf rearer and my partner has been farming for 16 years.