|
AWI Dairy Husbandry Standards
 |
|
 |
|
AWI dairy husbandry
standards require that herds be allowed to graze on healthy,
well-maintained pastures in season.
|
Cattle in this dairy
factory spend their days on cement floors standing in their own urine
and manure. Lameness is prevalent in dairy factories.
|
The premise of AWI's humane farm
husbandry program is that animals must enjoy sound physical and
psychological health in environments that permit constructive expression
of natural behaviors. Housing and management should consider the
biological and behavioral characteristics of the animal and include
sufficient space and opportunity for performing self-protective (e.g.,
avoiding pain or injury), self-maintenance (e.g., grooming), and other
important behaviors (e.g., care of young and social interaction). Animals
should be free from pain, fear, hunger and thirst, discomfort, disease,
and distress.
Small family-owned and operated dairy
farms, where cows are traditionally released from straw-bedded barns to
graze on green pastures as soon as Spring weather allows, are disappearing
from the American landscape. Mega-dairies confine thousands of cows on
concrete and dirt lots year-round, using bovine growth hormone and
manipulating genetics to force higher milk production, and creating new
animal welfare problems in the process.
The Animal Welfare Institute's
forthcoming Humane Dairy Cattle Husbandry Standards require that the
animals graze pasture in season, have freedom of movement when sheltered
from inclement weather, be provided straw or similar suitable bedding to
protect the animal from a hard or abrasive resting surface and to help
keep the animals clean. Shipping newborn calves to auctions or other
farms, tail-docking, electric cow trainers, tie stalls or stanchions, and
administration of bovine growth hormone and non-therapeutic administration
of antibiotics are prohibited.
AWI's protocol addresses the need to
preserve family-owned and operated dairies characterized by high welfare
standards. This form of agriculture tends to preserve the identity and
value of individual members of the herd and avoids the growing dependence
of dairy operators on the cheapest unskilled hired labor available.
|
