11-5 IAN Dairy Abuse

 Déjà vu with the awful dairy video. I’m David Sparks with the Ag Information Network. By now everybody has heard about the awful treatment that some cows received in the Mercy for animals video that was released several weeks ago. I waited to talk about all of this because I wanted hysterical reactions on both sides of the issue to calm down. I called Bob Naerbout, executive director of the Idaho Dairyman’s Association and asked for his interpretation of what had happened. I wasn’t behind on this story, listen to Bob’s 1st comment.What you see in the video  is is not tolerated by the dairy industry in Idaho  and definitely not tolerated by the dairy producer whose animals  were being abused and shown  being  abused.  I think we all have to recognize the importance of properly handling animals and the care of animals and that is what makes the economic success of the dairy industry. The producer himself was outraged, I happened to be with him when he saw the video. This was back in August so he has been aware of it for a long time. It was a real gut shot for him to see how people were handling his animals and he took appropriate steps of that time. There was an investigation that went on and he fully cooperated with the investigators. He took appropriate measures and dismissed the employees. He has also installed monitoring equipment so that he can see what is going on in his dairy operations at any given time.