From J-Walk blog:
Bovine news: California to cows: Keep the tails.
California cows are the first in the nation with the legal right to swat flies as nature intended now that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill banning the painful practice of tail docking that he once mocked as being a waste of legislators’ time…
Dairy officials say the practice of cutting off cow tails to prevent them from slinging manure is practiced on fewer than 15% of the state’s 1.5 million dairy cows. Docking is usually done without numbing, either with sharp shears or with a tight rubber band that stops the blood flow and causes the tail to die.
Some dairy operators have argued that removing tails improves sanitation, a claim that research has not supported. In 2004 the American Veterinary Medical Association came out against the practice.
Here are two cows. The cow on the left has no tail. The cow on the right has its tail intact.
I had no idea that this was such a problem that they had to make a new law. That just shows you how much I keep up on cow news.
With all of the terrible financial problems in lala land, they take time to worry about cow tails… Aha, a clue as to what is wrong out there!
WTF
Well cows do provide you with a great deal of your food.
this is the advantage to working with farmers, you get to find out how badly those animals really are treated. Not that I give a damn.
If they think bobbing the tails with rubber bands is bad, then do not tell them that they use rubber bands to make young bulls into steers.
I used to milk cows at a dairy and one particularly grumpy old gal was really good at nailing you right in the face with her urine and feces soaked tail when you were milking her (putting the machine on and off). One morning, right after she’d gotten me good, I’d finally had enough. So I went and got my gun and shot her in the leg to teach her a lesson. That way we could still milk her, and she only limped for about a week.
Just kidding. I went and got some scissors and clipped the hair off the end of her tail. She stopped doing it after that.
After getting slapped in the face with a manure covered tail enough times, you wouldn’t think of cow tail removal as cruel…
Yes, Richard, it is only silly, silly California that is concerned about something so superficial as the amputation of a body part without anesthesia. This policy will surely hasten their economic downfall.
you know there are homeless all across america, glad we got our priorities straight.
In california every man and or creature has the right to sling shit.
But i guess the mutilation of newborn baby boys is still ok eh.
Personall I prefer docking with sheep. Everybody to their own liking said the old lady as she (docked) kissed the cow, my mother used to say.
Quickie–Teenage slicker on Grampa’s farm for the summer. The ol’ guy’s blind, so the boy figures, wtf, he won’t know if I “dock” ol’ Bessie. Comes into the house after his virgin trip to the barn and gramps sniffs and yells, “Ya been dockin’ ol Bessie, aincha? I coulda toldya to take a stick first, step aside, and prime her.”
Anyone–Did I tell that right? Seems less funny now.
BTW, I was cornfused at first. Did the govvanuh think cow docking was a waste of the reps’ time? Or legislating?
BUT McBARF will NOT have their BigBarf secret ingredient any MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@tdc
are you one of those anti-circumcision people?