1 MILWAUKEE - Incidents of sick and injured dairy cows being slapped, poked and forced to their feet with heavy machinery - while not common - may not be that unusual, according to farmers and others who viewed an undercover video this week from the Wiese Brothers Farm in Brown County, Wis.
2 While not defending practices such as suspending a disabled cow in the air with a mechanical lift, farmers said parts of the video could be explained as necessary actions.
3 Sometimes you can sneak up behind a downed cow, scream at it, and scare the animal into getting back on its feet, said Paul Rozadowski, a dairy farmer from Stanley.
4 'When you have a downed cow with milk fever, you have to try and get her back on her feet as soon as possible.
5 Otherwise, the muscles in the back of her legs turn to mush and she will never get up again,' Rozadowski said.
6 The video, shot this fall by an investigator of the animal rights group Mercy for Animals, depicts workers at Wiese Brothers Farm dragging downed cows by their legs and necks using chains attached to tractors, and whipping downed cows in the face and body while shouting profanities at them.
7 It also shows a disabled cow suspended in the air with a mechanical lift, an image that animal care experts say seems shockingly cruel, and it shows sick or injured cows suffering from open wounds.
8 Wiese Brothers Farm did not return two Milwaukee Journal Sentinel calls asking for comment, but in a statement the farm's owners said they had fired two employees for suspected animal abuse, and the farm was cooperating with a Brown County Sheriff's Department investigation into animal cruelty allegations.
9 Brown County District Attorney David L. Lasee declined comment on Wednesday.
10 He said through a spokeswoman that the sheriff's department was still investigating the case and had not sent him a referral.
11 Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, issued a statement that called on Lasee to 'investigate and prosecute' the workers who were shown harming the cattle.
12 'Animal abuse of the nature captured in that video is reprehensible and a clear message needs to be sent that it will not be tolerated in Wisconsin,' Carpenter wrote in a letter to Lasee.
13 Wisconsin dairy industry leaders have depicted the practices shown in the video as shocking, cruel and not typical of the industry.
14 But farmers say some scenes in the video clip could mistakenly be viewed as animal cruelty and that Mercy for Animals, which promotes a vegan diet, could be using the video for propaganda purposes.
15 John Rosenow, a Buffalo County dairy farmer with 500 cows, says it's not unusual for a large farm to have a disabled animal once or twice a month.
16 Workers on his farm use heavy equipment to carefully move a downed cow to a maternity area where it's placed on a soft bed of sawdust and given a chance to recover.
17 Kicking a downed cow, or using a stick, doesn't help get the animal back on its feet, according to Rosenow.
18 Instead, he pokes the cow with an old ink pen to stimulate it into moving.
19 'Cows are different animals. They weigh 1,500 pounds, and when you try to move a cow or get them up - and the cow doesn't want to get up - you have to convince them,' Rosenow said.
20 A farm's management sets the tone for how sick and injured animals are handled, according to Rosenow and other farmers, and generally the employees will follow those procedures because they don't want to lose their jobs.
21 'We are very strict and have a zero tolerance for mistreating animals,' Rosenow said.
22 Someone slapping a downed dairy cow to get the animal back on its feet could be doing it to save the animal's life, said Joanna Storm, who previously worked on a Wisconsin milk-hauling route and has been on many dairy farms.
23 'A slap on the nose and a crack on the ass to get the cow up can make the difference between scaring her to get up and her having to be shot and made into dog food,' Storm said.
24 'In my humble opinion, it's more humane to try everything possible without crossing that line of caring into abuse.
25 I have seen an old man have to leave the barn, in tears, when he saw one of his ‘ladies' put down,' she added.
26 'What the video showed was men being excessively abusive, and the sad part is it looked as if they enjoyed it,' Storm said.
27 The animal handling practices shown in the short video clip can't be explained as necessary rough handling of downed cows, according to Temple Grandin, an animal welfare expert from Colorado State University who's widely credited for changes that have resulted in more humane treatment of livestock in slaughterhouses.
28 A well-run dairy farm would never tolerate such things, Grandin said in an interview.
29 'It's difficult to get a downed cow back on its feet.
30 But you don't lift that animal with a hoist and carry it around that way.
31 The correct practice with a hip lift (machine) is to lift the cow to a standing position,' she said.
32 'They shouldn't be dragging animals, either,' Grandin said.
33 'If an animal is in that bad of shape, euthanize it.
34 What I saw on that video was terrible.
35 But to say that every dairy farm is behaving badly would be like saying everybody is a drunk driver based on somebody producing a bunch of pictures of car accidents caused by drunk drivers.
36 I have been on some very good dairy farms'.
37 Until the video was released, Wiese Brothers Farm was a milk supplier for Baraboo-based cooperative Foremost Farms and Nestle USA, which makes DiGiorno frozen pizzas.
38 After the release, Nestle and Foremost quickly severed ties with the farm.
39 'Nestle is outraged and deeply saddened by the mistreatment of animals shown in this video,' the company said in a statement.
40 Wednesday, Mercy for Animals said it was seeking talks with Nestle to try and convince the company to adopt anti-cruelty guidelines for its milk suppliers.
41 'We haven't heard anything from them yet, but we are hopeful,' said Matt Rice, chief of investigations for the Los Angeles-based group.
42 Slaughterhouses improved their animal treatment after large customers like McDonald's began auditing the plants and demanding changes, according to Grandin.
43 'But it's one thing to audit 75 plants; that's a manageable number.
44 It's another thing to audit thousands of dairy farms,' she said.
45 Changes in the dairy industry won't come easy, according to Grandin, who says cows on some farms are being pushed too hard to produce milk, at the expense of their health and a short lifespan.
46 'Farm management has to get away from the attitude that a cow is just a milking machine,' she said, adding that some cows are milked for as little as two years before they're sent to the meat packing plant.
47 The Mercy for Animals video has gone viral, with news agencies and bloggers around the world posting it online.
48 Wisconsin farm groups say the exposure could harm the dairy state's reputation and further erode drinking milk sales that have been plummeting for years.
49 'There are some awful things in that video mixed in with things that maybe aren't all what they seem.
50 But farmers must realize they're operating in an environment where the cameras could be rolling 24 hours a day,' said Casey Langan, spokesman for Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation.

" When you have a downed cow with milk fever , you have to try and get her back on her feet as soon as possible .
soon as possible
Why do you need to get her back on her feet as soon as possible?