Proposed Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Cattle
A2.4 Standard 5.6 – Exercise of tethered cattle
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- A2.5 Standard 5.7 – Electro-immobilisation requirements
A2.4 Standard 5.6 – Exercise of tethered cattleAccording 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.
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
A2.5 Standard 5.7 – Electro-immobilisation requirementsElectro-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:
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
*Source: Dairy Australia, Australian Dairy Industry in Focus 2011 **Source: ABS (2011) – Agricultural Commodities by State & Territory - Cat. No. 7121.0 2010-11
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
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
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.
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