Proposed Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Cattle

A2.11 Standard 6.7 –Training or direct supervision requirement for spaying

According to Standard 6.7, a person spaying a cow must be a veterinarian or where permitted in the jurisdiction be accredited or be under the direct supervision of a person who is accredited.

Cattle spaying has been practiced in northern Australia for the past 60 years and is viewed as a “husbandry procedure that can assist herd management by preventing heifers and cows from becoming pregnant thereby increasing their chances of survival and improving weight gain to become marketable”²⁰⁰. Spaying techniques include flank spaying, flank webbing or drop-ovary (Willis) technique (DOT). Spaying is an important husbandry procedure for remote areas of northern Australia that are not able to be serviced by veterinarians. There are an estimated 489,156 cattle spayed per annum²⁰¹. Acceptable standards of performance by lay spayers is desirable to meet industry needs until a cost-effective alternative to surgical procedures is available.
Spaying is primarily carried out on beef cattle in Queensland, Northern Territory and the Pilbara and Kimberley regions of Western Australia.²⁰² Furthermore, based on spaying data from survey of cattle husbandry practices²⁰³, up to 7% of beef producing businesses in northern Australia are involved in spaying activity. As shown in Table A2.12, the total number of businesses involved in spaying is around 1,522²⁰⁴.


Table A2.12 – Estimated number of beef cattle farms by state and territory involved in spaying

Jurisdiction	Beef cattle farms involved with spaying (w1) = (j)^205*7% except for WA and NT^206	Beef cattle farms involved with self-spaying (x1) = (w1)*55%	Number of farmhands annually requiring training and accreditation (y1) = (x1)*10%
NSW	0	0	0
VIC	0	0	0
QLD	1,346	740	74
SA	0	0	0
WA	58	32	3
TAS	0	0	0
NT	118	65	6
ACT	0	0	0
AUSTRALIA	1,522	837	84

Moreover, based on the cattle husbandry survey by MLA²⁰⁷, up to 55% of businesses are involved in flank spaying of heifers (i.e. spaying conducted by ‘staff/self’). Therefore, it is assumed that up to 837 businesses may be involved in flank spaying, as shown in Table A2.12. Furthermore, one farmhand per business is assumed to be involved in spaying per business and 10%²⁰⁸ would require training and accreditation by an industry association every year (i.e. 84 farmhands per annum) assuming a constant turnover in the industry²⁰⁹.

However, the Australian Cattle Veterinary Association notes that:
“There is no formal practical training program available. However, it is believed that some veterinarians particularly in Qld provide some ‘hands-on’ demonstration to interested parties during ‘spay runs’ on specific properties.”
Therefore, in order to meet the requirements of Standard 6.7, the Cattle Council of Australia (CCA) is overseeing the development of a standard for a Unit of Competency (UoC) for DOT lay spayers. The administrative cost of this accreditation scheme would involve hiring an administrator to process accreditation and associated membership with a fee for service assumed to be $60 per certificate²¹⁰.
Delivery of the UoC would also involve a Registered Training Organisation (RTO). This arrangement would involve a one-off establishment cost for the particular competency unit for the establishment of a syllabus and materials (including workbooks) estimated to be around $10,000 for unit development²¹¹ and $2,000 for printing hardcopy workbooks at $20 each for around for up to 100 farm hands (includes an additional half a dozen spare workbooks for replacement). The training for the competency unit would be done on the farm for a day (7.5hrs) with an average 1000km return trip per assessment by an individual veterinarian. Transport costs are assumed to 74 cents/km²¹². This would mean an average transport cost to $740.

For the remaining 90% of 837 lay spayers (i.e. 753 spayers) – a one-off recognised prior learning (RPL) would need to be obtained from the CAA in the first year of implementation at a cost of $60 per certificate including processing cost. This would also involve a time cost for farmhands in preparing the necessary documents for RPL requirements at an average assumed time of 2hrs per farmhand.

Public consultation question 22: Do you know the number or percentage of farm hands requiring training for spaying under proposed standard S6.7; or any information to improve the estimation of costs?
As shown in Table A2.13, the 10-year incremental cost of providing for training and accreditation and RPL would be approximately $4.69m or $3.11m in 2012-13 present value dollars.
Table A2.13 – 10-year incremental cost of training and accreditation and RPL under Standard 6.7 –2012-13 dollars

Jurisdiction	Farmhand’s time cost for training (z1) = (y1)^213*(h)^214*7.5hrs	Cost of certificate by CCA (z1#) = $60*(y1)	One-off unit cost for RTO including materials (z1^) = $12,000	Vet’s time cost for training and travel (including transport) (z1”) = (y1)*[$740 + (10hrs travel*$245) + (7.5hrs training*$245)]	One-off farmhand’s time cost for preparing documents for RPL and one-off cost of RPL and certificate by CCA (z1~) = ((x1)^215*90%*(h)*2hrs) +($60*(x1)*90%)	Annual cost year 1 (z1’) = (z1)+ (z1#)+ (z1^)+ (z1”)+ (z1~)	Annual cost years 2 to 10 (z1^^) = (z1)+ (z1#)+ (z1”)	10-year cost (z1^^^) = (z1’) + [(z1^^)*9]
NSW	$0	$0		$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
VIC	$0	$0		$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
QLD	$27,462	$4,441		$372,136	$105,879	$509,917	$404,039	$4,146,267
SA	$0	$0		$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
WA	$1,316	$191		$16,038	$4,880	$22,425	$17,545	$180,328
TAS	$0	$0		$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
NT	$1,619	$389		$32,628	$7,391	$42,029	$34,637	$353,765
ACT	$0	$0		$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
Australia	$31,859	$5,022	$12,000	$420,802	$118,150	$586,371	$456,221	$4,692,360
Present value 7% discount rate								$3,108,356
3% discount rate								$3,900,988
10% discount rate								$2,655,999