The farmer involved in this week’s New Zealand viral dairy video has responded. According to NZFarmer, the dairy producer, who wished to remain anonymous, said he left the the cow in the hip clamp because he thought the mysterious FarmWatch individuals in the car near his property were thieves.
The dairy producer was helping a paralyzed cow after calving when he noticed a car lurking near his property. After he scared the car away, he went back to his property as well as his parents’ to lock everything up. The farmer, who had been previously robbed, said it was a stressful situation and that he never would have intentionally left the cow up in the hip clamp for that long.
The farmer told NZFarmer that he and two other employees returned and released the cow from the hip clamp that day and the cow has since returned to milking.
As Farmer’s Daughter stated in her column this week, the problem is that it can be extremely hard to tell whether these types of videos are showing animal abuse, or if they are completely staged to influence opinions. Check out her column, ‘Undercover’ videos show what they want you to see, not the reality of farming, where she turns to some trusted sources for more answers on the use of hip clamps in the dairy industry.
