Proposed Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Cattle

A2.4 Standard 5.6 – Exercise of tethered cattle

According to proposed Standard 5.6, a person in charge must ensure cattle are accustomed to tethering before they are tethered for long periods. A person in charge must ensure tethered cattle are able to exercise daily. Tethering of cattle is a minority practice associated with peri-urban cattle ownership.

The main resource cost of this standard would be the time required to ensure that exercise is undertaken for cattle. Hourly charge out rates for each state and territory are established in Appendix 1 (see column (h) in Table A1.1). Moreover, for the purpose of estimation, the amount of time required per day to exercise permanently tethered cattle would be 10 minutes per animal, even if the exercise is off-leash as some oversight would be required to prevent damage to house paddocks.
Based on advice from AWC the estimated number of cattle permanently tethered by state or territory is summarised in Table A2.4.

Public consultation question 16: Do you know the number or percentage of cattle tethered and requiring exercise under proposed standard S5.6 or any information to improve the estimation of costs?

As shown in Table A2.4, the 10-year cost of exercising permanently tethered cattle under proposed Standard 5.6 is estimated to be approximately $4.76m or $3.13m in 2012-13 present value dollars.

Table A2.4 – 10-year incremental cost of exercising permanently tethered cattle under Standard 5.6 –2012-13 dollars

Jurisdiction	No. of cattle permanently tethered (t)	Hourly charge out rates (h)^179	Annual cost of exercise (u) = (t)*(h)*0.167hrs*365 days	10-year cost (v) = (u)*10
NSW	100	$51	$308,463	$3,084,632
VIC	10	$57	$34,933	$349,328
QLD	10	$49	$30,092	$300,924
SA	10	$49	$29,644	$296,437
WA	10	$55	$33,454	$334,535
TAS	10	$65	$39,585	$395,855
NT	-	$33	$0	$0
ACT	-	$46	$0	$0
Australia	150		$476,171	$4,761,711
Present value 7% discount rate				$3,125,633
3% discount rate				$3,943,530
10% discount rate				$2,659,878

A2.5 Standard 5.7 – Electro-immobilisation requirements

Electro-immobilisation¹⁸⁰ is the use of pulsed, low-frequency electrical current to restrain an animal. It is an important supplement to cattle restraint for treatments and procedures, most frequently used where, using conventional restraint methods, cattle are highly likely to injure themselves or stock people (Petherick 2005). Electro-immobilisation does not provide pain relief but is useful for assisting cattle treatments and procedures in skilled hands.

According to Standard 5.6, a person must only use electro-immobilisation on cattle if:

1. 
   the device is approved for use in the jurisdiction¹⁸¹;
   
2. 
   the cattle are over six months old;
   
3. 
   the operator is trained or it is done under direct supervision of a veterinarian¹⁸² or a trained person; and
   
4. 
   alternative restraining methods are inadequate to hold cattle sufficiently for the procedure being performed.
   

The implication of this is that there will be additional training costs in all states and jurisdictions less costs of direct veterinary supervision in New South Wales and Tasmania where the cheaper option of training and accreditation would now be available¹⁸³. Although Victoria is likely to retain its ban on electro-immobilisation this costing is for the proposed national standards that are intended to replace all other standards. (The proposed national standards represent minimum standards of welfare that do not preclude jurisdictions from retaining existing higher requirements). The standard determines the basis for acceptable use of electro-immobilisation. The risk to industry if this method is banned would be increased costs due to the need to apply different methods of restraint (better veterinary crushes, roping, veterinary sedation and anaesthesia), injuries to stock persons and the need to apply alternative more expensive treatments.

According to AHA, the cost of training and accreditation is likely to be minor as it is envisaged that this would be provided by the retailer as a support service accompanied by a ‘soft’ accreditation approach and estimated to take one hour. This is mainly envisaged as a defensive standard with minimal cost impact. Moreover, according to Dairy Australia this would only be relevant to beef cattle.
It is noted that a total of 45,534¹⁸⁴ individuals (i.e. farmhands) are employed in the production of beef cattle. Of this number, it is estimated that 2,212 farmhands are employed in accredited and unaccredited feedlots (see Part A2.18 for discussion and estimate). Therefore the total number of farmhands relevant for this estimation is 45,534 minus 2,212 or 43,322 farmhands. Pro rata estimates of the number of farmhands employed by state and territory are based on the number of beef cattle in each jurisdiction, as outlined in Table A2.5.
Table A2.5 – Total cattle herd by state and territory 2010-11

Jurisdiction	Dairy cattle herd* (w)	Beef cattle herd ** (x)	Total cattle herd (y)=(w)+(x)
NSW	200,000	5,383,931	5,583,931
VIC	1,020,000	2,365,850	3,385,850
QLD	90,000	12,449,625	12,539,625
SA	90,000	1,109,640	1,199,640
WA	55,000	1,954,382	2,009,382
TAS	145,000	466,583	611,583
NT	-	2,197,359	2,197,359
ACT	-	8,807	8,807
AUSTRALIA	1,600,000	25,936,177	27,536,177

*Source: Dairy Australia, Australian Dairy Industry in Focus 2011

**Source: ABS (2011) – Agricultural Commodities by State & Territory - Cat. No. 7121.0 2010-11
Based on the total beef cattle herd in column (x) in Table A2.5 the following pro rata estimates of the number of farmhands by state and territory is provided in Table A2.6.
Table A2.6 – Estimated number of beef cattle farmhands by state and territory 2010-11

Jurisdiction	No. Farmhands beef cattle (z) = 43,322/ 25,936,177 *(x)^185
NSW	8,993
VIC	3,952
QLD	20,795
SA	1,853
WA	3,264
TAS	779
NT	3,670
ACT	15
AUSTRALIA	43,322

It is assumed that 1% of farmhands would need to be trained under proposed Standard 5.7 at a time cost of around one hour per farmhand (including training and testing), DVD costs at $1 per disc and reading materials at $0.50 per reading material - per farmhand. It is also assumed that the turnover in the number of beef cattle farmhands will be constant and stable over 10 years, as well as, and those needing training (i.e. 1% or in other words 455 per annum).

The total 10-year incremental training/disc production cost and publication cost is estimated to be approximately $0.22m or $0.15m in 2012-13 present value dollars, as shown in Table A2.7.
Table A2.7 – 10-year incremental training cost of beef cattle farmhands by state and territory under Standard 5.7 –2012-13 dollars

Jurisdiction	No. Farmhands requiring training (a1)=(z)*1%	Hourly cost (h)^186	Training cost (b1)=(a1)*(h)	Disc production cost (c1)=(a1)*$1	Material publication cost (d1)=(a1)* $0.50	Annual cost (e1)=(b1)+ (c1)+(d1)	10-year cost (e1)’= (e1)*10
NSW	90	$51	$4,560	$90	$45	$4,695	$46,949
VIC	40	$57	$2,269	$40	$20	$2,329	$23,285
QLD	208	$49	$10,287	$208	$104	$10,599	$105,986
SA	19	$49	$903	$19	$9	$931	$9,310
WA	33	$55	$1,795	$33	$16	$1,844	$18,442
TAS	8	$65	$507	$8	$4	$519	$5,188
NT	37	$33	$1,221	$37	$18	$1,276	$12,762
ACT	0	$46	$7	$0	$0	$7	$70
Australia	433					$22,199	$221,993
Present value 7% discount rate							$145,718
3% discount rate							$183,849
10% discount rate							$124,004

Moreover, there would be an annual cost savings of $220¹⁸⁷ per hour of veterinary costs (routine issues for multiple animals¹⁸⁸ including travel costs) for around 1.5%¹⁸⁹ of beef cattle in New South Wales and Tasmania, as veterinary supervision would no longer be required where training is undertaken. The 10-year cost savings would be equal to $0.39m or $0.26m in 2012-13 present value dollars, as shown in Table A2.8.

Table A2.8 – 10-year incremental cost savings of no longer exclusively requiring veterinary supervision in NSW and TAS for electro-immobilisation under Standard 5.7 –2012-13 dollars

Jurisdiction	No. cattle affected (f1)= (x)*1.5%	Annual veterinary cost savings (g1)=(f1)*$220hr/180	10-year cost savings (h1)=10*(g1)
NSW	80,759	$35,893	$358,929
TAS	6,999	$3,111	$31,106
Australia	87,758	$39,003	$390,034
Present value 7% discount rate			$256,022
3% discount rate			$323,017
10% discount rate			$217,872

The net 10-year incremental cost savings of proposed Standard 5.7 would therefore be approximately equal to $0.17m or $0.11m¹⁹⁰ in 2012-13 present value dollars. This reflects purely the impact of the proposed standard on all the jurisdictions and does not reflect the choice of particular states or territories, such as NSW or TAS to retain existing higher standards.

Public consultation question 17: Do you know the number or percentage of cattle subject to electro-immobilisation, the number of farmhands requiring training under proposed standard S5.7 or any information to improve the estimation of training costs?