Wednesday, 24 May 2023 16:50

Really?

Written by The Hound

font size decrease font size increase font size

OPINION: It seems wokeness is now well and truly infecting the brains trust at The New Zealand Merino Company, which now wants farmers to give lambs pain relief during tail docking.

According to the NZ Merino Company's Dave Maslen, by June 2025 farmers will have to "administer pain relief for castration, tailing, and any severe shearing injuries on farms".

"This is a step we need to take as pain mitigation is quickly becoming a non-negotiable for some markets and it is already a requirement of other internatinal ethical wool standards," Maslen claims.

However, Federated Farmers Toby Williams says while it did not have a problem with farmers meeting animal welfare requirements for pain relief during tail docking and pain relief was not a requirement under animal welfare standards.

MPI says no pain relief was needed on lambs younger than six months.

More like this

New Zealand Merino Company expands TextileGenesis traceability

The New Zealand Merino Company (NZM) is expanding its collaboration with TextileGenesis to deliver full traceability for 100% of ZQ certified wool and ZQRX regenerative wool.

Wrong focus

OPINION: Your old mate reckons townie Brooke van Velden, the Minister of Workplace (or is it Woke Place) Relations is now showing how underemployed she is as a minister by initiating an investigation into whether young children should be banned from collecting eggs on farms and feeding animals.

Burn the village

OPINION: There's an infamous term coined by a US general during the Vietnam war, specifically in reference to the battle of Ben Tre: "We had to burn the village to save it."

Purist problem

OPINION: The sudden departure of Jim Ward, manager of Molesworth Station for 24 years, highlighted some major dysfunction in the way conservation estate is managed in this country - the biggest problem, as the Hound sees it, being idealogues who harp on about "taonga" and use all means possible to block sensible commercial operations on conservation land.

Drill baby, drill!

OPINION: While the destruction of NZ's oil and gas industry by Jacinda Ardern's band of merry vandals was virtue signalling on a heroic scale - producing no environmental benefit whatsoever - the politician vowing to make that industry whole again, Shane Jones, is not above a bit of virtue signalling of his own.