Today Ryan conducted a routine visit to one of our largest indoor Dairy herd – 400 cows with an average yield of 10,500 litres per cow per year. That is pretty epic! Last year the farm was nominated for a highly prestigious, National award for milk quality and production. Just getting nominated is a huge achievement, which we are very proud of.
As most of you may already know, milk produced on farms can only be sold for human consumption if it meets rigorous standards of quality and cleanliness. Currently, every cow on this farm is producing milk that meets and in some cases exceeds these standards.
Milk companies require Vets to regularly monitor and evaluate factors involved in producing milk of sufficient standard for human consumption. In addition to this, vets have to ensure all farm animals under our care have the ‘five freedoms’ – a set of animal welfare standards recognised by the World Organisation for Animal Health.
They are:
- Freedom from hunger and thirst
- Freedom from discomfort
- Freedom from pain, injury or disease
- Freedom to express normal behaviour
- Freedom from fear and distress
This is a vital part of our daily farm work and ensures that meat and animal products you eat and drink are produced from happy, healthy animals.
