Despicable treatment of bobby calves

It makes me incredibly sad and angry when animals are treated cruelly by humans.

It is beyond me how any person can treat an animal the way they have some of these dairy calves.

Exporting to China endless milk powder has caused greed, now manifested on some farms as cruelty.

Can someone please answer these questions?

Can cows not be chemically treated to make them lactate so these poor creatures are not born into a very short life of misery equally distressing to their mother?

Can legislation be put in place that dairy farms are taken off people who treat cows and their calves in a cruel and inhumane manner?

Like free-range eggs, can milk and dairy products be assessed according to a certain criteria and labelled with a ‘‘cruelty free’’ sticker or SPCA tick? I would be happy to pay a bit more. Kirsten Taylor Westmorland

A better end for calves

Regarding the sad end of bobby calves, and at the risk of getting vegans and vegetarians on my case, I wonder if New Zealand dairy farmers are not missing out on a possibly lucrative new meat product – milk-fed veal?

In my 30 years here I have never seen such veal on the menu.

I am suggesting this to stop wastage and get better treatment and a humanly accepted end for these fine animals, as with our lambs. Fe´ licien Forgues Woodend