New Zealand agricultural history. The 1992 Canterbury snowstorms

 

By Clive Dalton

Book of words and pictures by Phillip King, 1992.  ISBN 0-473-01654-0

 

First snow emergency, Tuesday July 14, 1992

I was working for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) in the MAF Quality Management division (called MAFQual), for the MAF Northern North Island region, which was cut off from the Southern North Island business by a line through Lake Taupo.  My fancy title was ‘Information Co-ordinator’ as we couldn’t think of anything better.

MAFQual covered the Dairy, Meat, Animal Health and Welfare, Ag Quarantine and Horticulture businesses, so when the first snow storm started in Canterbury on July 14 1992, I was ordered by our MAFQual Regional Director to go to Christchurch to help with media issues, as the emergency got wide coverage, mainly because of the good copy and pictures that dead and dying animals, and massive snow drifts provided.  The snow was mainly on the Canterbury foothills, so didn’t get down to any depth at street level in Christchurch, or to sea level on farms on the plains.

Nobody from Head Office went to Christchurch, which was normal, as they assumed they were far too important to leave their HO posts, and possibly get wet, cold and dirty.  And of course, the bosses had to be close to the Minister incase a ‘Ministerial’ arrived from parliament which had to be attended to immediately, incase there was a question in the House about an issue, and the snow crisis was certainly that. The HO bureaucrats preferred to be filmed making statements from behind their big power desks next to their computers, rather than from behind a snowdrift.  It was fatal if they were asked to be filmed while typing, as most of them could only pick with two fingers while searching the keyboard.

I had no winter clothing for a snow event, so I borrowed son Nigel’s blue ski jacket.  I’m not sure now how I collected it from him on the way to the snow.  But I was certainly grateful for it.  I had plenty of beanies.

MAF HQ at Amberley

Christchurch airport was open, so there was no problem getting there.  A MAF colleague met me and drove me to Amberley to the offices of the Hurunui District Council, which was the snow emergency HQ.  I remember lugging my Apple II Mac computer and dot matrix printer with me.  Apple had made a large square padded bag for the computer but the printer weighed a tonne and had to be carried separately.  It was an ugly bit of gear.

It was all action at Amberley, and my job was to sit by the phone and log all calls from the media, deal with them if I could, and if it required more expert comment, I had to find the appropriate person.  I had also to find contacts where any of the media wanted to take photos or film.  I had to keep in constant telephone contact with Head Office to keep everyone informed, especially with the Director General Dr Russell Ballard’s Director of Corporate Communications – Robert Brewer. 

At the end of a long day I was accommodated in a freezing Unit No 1 at the Delhaven Motel, a few hundred yards from the office.  When I got there in the dark after work around 7pm it was like a blast freezer. I can’t remember where I got food from for an evening meal – probably takeaways. The Unit supplied breakfast.

Key Farm Advisors

The key MAF people on the job were the local Farm Advisory staff, who were both out in the field checking what was going on and what was needed, and then making arrangements from HQ to ensure it happened.  The key man was Terry Donaldson, as he had been a Farm Advisory Officer in the old MAF days so he knew farms and farmers.

Terry had spent many years in the North Island and then moved to Fairlie, where he gained plenty of experience of snow and the problems it brings.  It would have been a much bigger disaster for MAF if the adviser in Christchurch had never dealt with snow before. 

Telephone contact with farmers was a major problem as the snow had brought the lines down.  It was not the age of cellphones, so many farms were completely cut off.

Iroquois choppers

It was here where the Royal NZ Air Force helicopters came into play, both to contact isolated farms and then provide hay to stock when and where they could be found.  The noise of the Iroquois choppers coming and going was like a Vietnam War movie – as these 30 year-old machines were the same models as used then.

The mess that the hay made inside the machines was amazing – hay seeds everywhere sucked in by the rotor vortex, and goodness knows how long it took to clean them out.  There were plenty of good stories of city folk and professionals taking time off to go snow raking in the high country, and people saving their lawn clippings to give to farmers to feed stock – not a good idea.

The worst of the crisis was over in a week and I flew home on Saturday 19 July.  Before that I remember grabbing a MAF car and driving north for a wee tour, but things seemed to be under control on most farms from the road.  Everybody assumed that there would be no more problems for the winter and that was it.  I took the next week off work as time in lieu.

Second snow emergency, Friday August 28, 1992

Everyone was badly caught out when it happened again, and especially in August, which was supposed to be spring!  The meteorological event responsible was a deep warm low approaching land from the east of Canterbury, spiraling in to meet the cold air blast coming directly up from the Antarctic. This resulted in an enormous dump of snow over most of the South Island, with the worst being in Canterbury and Marlborough.  There was a level metre of snow on the streets of Christchurch, with enormous drifts where the wind had blown.

Rapid snow dump

It all happened in 24 hours on Thursday August 27 and on the next day, there was a major crisis to deal with, although warnings had gone out on the Wednesday about approaching snow likely.  Again, I was ordered back to Christchurch and flew from Hamilton to Wellington with old faithful Apple II computer.  I didn’t take the printer this time, as it was decided to hire one locally which saved a lot of weight in my luggage

When I got word on the Thursday, I went out and bought a warm coat at Rod and Gun no less, and charged it to MAFQual, which I could do as I was allowed to have a MAF Credit Card.  This time I was going prepared.  I even sewed a MAF logo on the chest to be seen in TV interviews which I did a few of.

Christchurch airport closed

When I got to Wellington airport to check in for Christchurch I was told that all flights were cancelled and Christchurch airport was snowed in.  There was no way they could have prepared for this.  I seemed to be the only one in the old tin shed of the Wellington terminal in those days.  So I phoned Head Office to tell them the story and was looking forward to going home. 

No such luck.  I was told to proceed to the Westpac Rescue Helicopter base on the other side of the main runway at Wellington airport, and meet Toby ?? the top rescue pilot who was going to Christchurch to assist with any emergencies.  I needed food, so I went to the Koro Club, which was the only place open, and I joined up without official permission – again using my MAF Credit Card.  I was in a strong position to tell any of my managers who didn’t approve of this to get lost!  I knew that they all viewed themselves important enough to be members, and on this occasion so did I! Later when I was found out when Director General Russell Ballard had a purge of Koru club membership, I had my card cancelled!

I stuffed my travel bag and computer into a tiny luggage hole on the side or the chopper, and got strapped in sitting on a hard bench-like seat behind the pilot where a stretcher would sit, and we lifted off over the city to Cook Straight heading for Blenheim to pick up a TV1 crew.  I had never been in a chopper before, and not in the wind over Cook Straight, but it wasn’t so bad, and going up and down over the hills at low level was very interesting seeing everything on farms at close quarter as we hedge-hopped all the way.

Blenheim to Christchurch

After picking up the crew of camera and sound person at Blenheim airport, and cramming the three of us along the hard seat behind the pilot, we headed for the coast and followed it all the way to Christchurch, only leaving it to turn inland to the airport.  The wind from the sea kept blasting the chopper inland with unforeseen surges, along with a plenty of ups and downs too.  I’m not a good flyer in normal conditions but survived this – just hanging on and trying to forget the pain in my bum.

There was no way anyone could move to ease a backside, which got more and more painful with no cushion to damp the pain. There was nothing to do but grin and bear it –looking ahead, hanging on and contemplating what we would find at the other end.

Eventually the airport appeared, with all planes at rest and covered in snow as we headed for the helicopter base beside the main terminal. What a relief for my backside!  We staggered out into one metre of snow everywhere where it had not been cleared.  I phoned the MAF office in town and somebody came to pick me up. Householders had made snowmen all the way down the middle of the road from the airport into town which had been cleared for minimal traffic – deep snow on all roofs and garden trees festooned with snow.  It was silent and nobody was about, but plenty of smoke emerging from chimneys.

MAF briefing

In the MAF office, I got a desk sorted, was briefed on where things were at and met the team – again thankfully led by Terry Donaldson.  MAFQual was so lucky to have Terry as a Regional Manager, and the July event had certainly taught everyone what to expect. But this time it was worse, as a greater area was affected right down to Timaru and beyond.  I was directed to my digs at the Carlton Mill Lodge in Colombo Street, which was a 10-minute walk away.  Nobody else was to be seen on the streets.

It was all on again with wide media interest, especially when the number of sheep and cattle deaths were available from some areas.  The media of course didn’t want to see or hear about the number of ewes and lambs that had been saved, they wanted to know about deaths and get pictures, especially of the large number of dead new-born lambs that where slid of tipping trucks into large holes.

Pre-lamb shearing

What made things worse and increased death rate, was the standard practice of pre-lamb shearing which was supposed to reduce lamb deaths. The theory was that a shorn ewe would feel cold, and then move to shelter taking her lambs with her.  High country Merinos are generally not pre-lamb shorn, but then they had the problem of snow balling up on their long fleeces, especially on their bellies, making it difficult for them to move.   The high ewe death rate caused by pre-lambing shearing was severely criticised by the public, and farmers’ justifications for it didn’t go down well at all.

Many sheep were buried because the snow was drifting, and when they went to shelter among the trees of the shelter belts, they didn’t know the theory that the maximum shelter area is 1.5 times the height of the trees – so was out in the paddock. They went into the bottom of the trees where massive drifts built up and buried them.  Many were never found alive.

 Volunteer snow rakers

Again, volunteers from town from all sorts of businesses turned out to help farmers ‘snow rake’, and this was a great news item.  I was full time sitting by the phone logging calls for Head Office evidence of my antics.   The phone would ring every 3-4 minutes with queries from all over.  Again, downed phone lines caused serious problems for communicating with farms.

I remember Paul Holmes from 1ZB calling for an update and comment, and even complimented me on the way we were covering things!  I remember a phone call during the night from the BBC asking if the high death rate among lambs would put up the price of NZ (Canterbury) lamb in British supermarkets.  That was a ‘hot potato’, which after a brief comment of saying no, I referred it to Head Office pronto!

Banks peninsula

I managed to escape my desk on a couple of occasions to have a fly around with the Farm Advisory Officers in the region.  We sat three in row in the chopper looking out of the main windscreen.  One trip was over Bank’s Peninsula, which showed the depth of snow and the few stock that were visible.

Many cattle were lost on the peninsula, buried in deep snowdrifts and dying of dehydration, as cattle unlike sheep don’t eat snow to get water. One farmer looking for his cattle fell through a drift, and would have never been found and died there, if he hadn’t found a tree to climb up and emerge again and survive.

Ashburton

The other trip was south to have a look around where we landed in the main street in Ashburton, as there was certainly no traffic and very few people who came to view our arrival.  We hovered over farms and Toby tipped the chopper up on its nose so we could all see down into sheep yards. This was a bit of a shock the first time!

The days in the office were long and tiring, and I bough takeaways for each evening meal, before turning up the heaters and going to bed after a nightly hot bath.  Thankfully the power was on in the city but not in many rural areas, as engineers couldn’t get through the snow to fix things.

End of stint

I eventually flew home on Friday 4 September 1992 after 8 days on the job.  Head office and my mangers seemed to be satisfied with my efforts.  By mid 1992 MAFQual developed severe financial problems, and I was invited to reapply for my job, with a 25% drop in salary.  I reapplied, but soon started looking for a new challenge

On Jan 1 1993 I left MAFQual to start work at The Waikato Polytechnic as a tutor in agriculture.

New Zealand biosecurity risks. Smugglers, Containers and Yachts

Dr Clive Dalton

Border Security

I was interested to read  compliments for our Border Security from a visiting Australian, and see his assurance that increasing visitor numbers will not increase threats of exotic disease incursions.  But then I heard former Grasslands scientist John Lancashire argue the opposite, and say that more visitors and increasing free trade deals would add massively to the threats.  I’d put my money on Lancashire.  The three things that scare me are smugglers, containers and yachts.

Visitors who are well informed by responsible travel agents, and who read and comply with the cards you fill in before landing are not a worry.  And neither are visitors and returning Kiwis who understand how threats to farming could put us out of business.

Smugglers

But sadly there are always travelers who deliberately won’t comply with what they see as unnecessary hassle and delay after a long flight, along with the few who see ‘beating the system’ as a game they can boast about afterwards. These are really small-time smugglers.

But the big-time smugglers are the real danger.  I got a big scare once when working for MAFQual’s Ag Quarantine Service, helping to get their message across to the public about what could be brought into NZ and what could not.  It was no small challenge.  I’ve never worked with such a dedicated group – and technology such as scanning and sniffer dogs must have made things easier since then.

The Ag Quarantine Officers at Auckland opened a container of sewing machines which all looked good at the doorway. But when some vigilant officer dug deeper inside, in the middle he found legs of uncooked pork and eggs – presumably a gift for an appreciative family friend!  I learned then that food has more than a nutritional value – it has ethnic and religious significance too, which was where big risks come in.

Shipping containers 

Source: Internet

 

Containers must be a nightmare, simply because they are increasing and there’s no way every one can be checked.  Their nooks and crannies are ideal for insects (especially ants) or seeds even after cleaning.  Add to that what’s hiding underneath such as massive tropical snails that would eat up our horticulture industry if they got going.

As trade increases, container ships are getting bigger and pressure on turnaround times increase, so even if we had an army checking them it’s probably always going to be a high risk area.  Border security staff have a mammoth job to do so we need plenty of them.

Currently ships to New Zealand carry 4000 containers soon to be updated to carry 6000. The Panama Canal is being widened to take future ships carrying 23,000 containers. In 2011 New Zealand had a graphic example of the environmental hazards that even small container ships can cause when they hit reefs and spill their cargo near shore, never mind what they bring when the containers get unloaded.

Yachts 

Source: Internet

 

The other scary experience I remember was the business of checking yachts, which I didn’t realise arrive all around our massive coastline at all hours of the day and night, and rely on the honesty of their owners to report to the authorities at some recognised arrival point for quarantine and customs checking. 

The owners of the yacht I went on with the Ag Quarantine officer at a recognised tourist port in Northland were most cooperative. They handed over their potted flowers they’d got in Fiji, said they had no fresh meat (or any other meat) and didn’t have a ship’s cat or dog to go into quarantine while in port.

The MAF officer thanked them and they agreed for an inspection of their tiny cupboards in the sharp end of the yacht where we found tinned beef from Argentina, which the yachties didn’t realise was a problem.  We relieved them of this and checked that all their dry provisions were insect free. These were cooperative travellers who realised the importance of our laws, but can we assume all of those who sail to our fair land are like this?

New Zealand livestock. Risk of Foot and Mouth Disease

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By Dr Clive Dalton

 Livestock Officers

Up to the 1980s, the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) had an army of Livestock Officers working from every town office testing cattle on programmes to eradicate Tb and Brucellosis. They were our watchdogs for anything abnormal that they saw on farms, which could have been the first signs of exotic diseases like foot and mouth.

MAF also had full-time veterinarians in the district offices to supervise the Livestock Officers’ work, and backed by our MAF admin staff, we held regular on-farm exercises to respond to an exotic disease incident. 

We practised total lockdown of animals, people, pets and vehicles – all with police backing. We were never popular, which I knew well being involved with the media liaison.  After an exercise we had detailed debriefings by all involved, which were scary, but at least we learned what we could be in for.

Change to SOE

But all this went down the bureaucratic offal hole with the spawning of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in the late 1990s, which had to make a profit for government shareholders – the public. 

Private veterinarians were given a greater role in disease surveillance for government, and a 0800 number was provided if you saw any slobbering or lame animals.  The trouble with this was that vets didn’t have the same coverage or right to walk on to farms which the MAF livestock officers had, as acting like a policeman wasn’t good for their future client relations or business.

So self-regulation claimed the day, and recent examples of its success don’t bear listing. The scary feature of recent events has been the delay seen in action, and poor communication between the major bureaucracies. Delays of weeks and even months between tests and actions have been the norm. 

Virus spread on the wind

With a virus like Foot and Mouth (FMD) spreading blowing on the wind, delay and a good westerly wind could see all farm animals infected between Raglan and Te Aroha (or even further afield) in a few days.  Birds and vermin would add their unwelcome and uncontrollable contribution to this spread, as animal carcases would be a great food source for them.

FMD is now an increasing possibility with increased tourism (and the risk of people smuggling ethnic food), larger ships carrying more containers and more pressure at ports, more yachts arriving at exotic bays and islands, and Palm Kernal Expeller (PKE) with freeloaders coming from Asia where FMD is endemic.

Pigs

  And then there are pigs.  Who would know where all the backyard and wild pigs are in New Zealand?  Sadly Ministry of Primary Industry (MPI) would never be able to find out, and few of these pigs would ever see a veterinarian or a meat inspector, allowing pigs and their meat ending up anywhere before an exotic disease was officially diagnosed and restrictions brought in.

What’s more, who is ensuring that all garbage including meat is cooked to the required 100°C for at least an hour according to the law? Registered commercial pig farmers are no problem, as they don’t tend to feed garbage, it’s the backyard piggeries that are the problem.

MAF Livestock Officers always had good local contacts to locate non-registered pig keepers, and pub talk after a day’s TB testing (with the MAF car parked out of sight) was an invaluable tool to know what was going on in the pig world.

Pigs fed uncooked garbage are a guaranteed source of FMD as they are the great incubators and spreaders of the virus, unlike cattle, sheep and deer. 

 FMD and trade

When (and not if) we get FMD, it’s highly likely to be an Asian strain and our European customers (where they vaccinate as FMD is endemic) wouldn’t want this risk. So they’ll use this as a great opportunity to delay restarting trade, simply by refusing to accept our renewed disease free status.  They’ll just keep on demanding more time and more documentation – easily for years.  It could end up like apples to Australia – taking decades.

The size of a clean up, even if we use vaccination and lose New Zealand’s disease free status, would be massive.  Finding people, coal, railway sleepers and machinery to burn and bury just Waikato’s one million dairy cows would be frightening. Imagine having an outbreak which could spread through the whole of the North Island?  The environmental impact on ground water of having all these buried carcasses doesn’t bear thinking about.

In the last UK outbreak there were 60 new outbreaks each day, and by the time the teams could get cows burned or buried, they’d blown up to twice their size to make the job even harder.  This handling can further spread the virus, as can veterinarians who have to stand down after a few days work.  Dead stock have to be moved in totally sealed trucks – so hopefully MPI have a fleet of those parked somewhere.

Restocking farms

Assuming that a clean up would eventually come to an end, at a cost to the economy that nobody dare predict, the really big concern is where would be get enough female genetics to restock our farms?

New Zealand's farmer cooperative Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) is well stocked with quarantined bull semen, but they don’t have a contingency plan as far as I can see to provide females to put semen into.  Neither is there a stockpile of frozen ovaries and embryos for any of our top farm livestock.  A few wise beef and sheep stud breeders have made small provisions of semen and ovaries from their top animals, but they could never provide enough for a national crisis.

It’s very hard to find people to discuss this question with, assuming presumably that the worst will never happen.  One minute organisations involved with our farm livestock are skiting about having the best genetics in the world, and then apparently assume that when millions of them go up in smoke or into large holes, females with the same genetic merit will mysteriously appear out of thin air to be mated and carry on where we left off!

National gene back needed 

I’m not holding my breath for any farming organisation volunteering to start a National Gene Bank to save our farm livestock, the nation’s farmers and the economy, as CEOs will rightly argue that it’s not their organisations’ core business.  

The need cries out for government leadership and investment.  But who would listen?  An old MAF mate and I have chewed plenty of ears over the last 40 years and failed.  We could make a good start with the $40million of government money promised for the next America’s cup attempt!

It’s only when you’ve lived through a FMD outbreak and remember the loss of valuable animals, the resulting human devastation and suicides, the stink of burning flesh, enormous holes on places like disused airfields, roads clogged by rubber neckers and the silence in the countryside, that you realise how ill prepared we are to face a FMD nightmare.

Grazing problems with cows’ teeth

By Dr Clive Dalton

Looking at a cow’s teeth

When buying or selling sheep, farmers and stock agents always inspect the animals’ front teeth (incisors) to make sure they can eat pasture effectively.  It’s called ‘mouthing’ and standard practice is that sale ewes are ‘guaranteed in mouth and udder’ before the hammer falls.

Why don’t we take the same approach with cattle, as their teeth are equally as important?  The answer is simple; it’s too difficult, as wrestling with a cow to open her mouth to inspect teeth needs strong arms, and can be dangerous, even with her head locked in a headbail. 

You need to get her nose in a half-Nelson wrestling hold, while leaning back against the headbail gate with feet well planted, and even then her head can still move quickly and hit you in the ribs.  Horns are an added hazard.

You then have to force the cow to open her mouth, which is best done by grabbing the side of her lip with your closed fingers, on the opposite side from where you are standing. 

There’s a small gap between a cow’s front incisors and her back molars where there is only gum.  You can poke your fingers in there for leverage to open her mouth while pulling her whole head upwards, but care is needed!  If she opens her mouth quickly and your fingers slip back between her molars, they’ll be neatly guillotined off, and you won’t see them again to get them sewn on again!

To get a good front view of a cow’s incisors, you need to hold their lips open (which they don’t like) to check for teeth numbers, missing teeth, gaps, to check the gums around the teeth, the state of wear and especially to see how well the incisors meet the gum.  To do all of this at once, you need three hands or a strong assistant.

Harvesting pasture

 
 The cow has a long ‘prehensile’ (gripping) tongue which is designed to sweep the grass into its mouth, where it’s immediately grabbed by the front incisors and held against the top hard dental pad before being ripped off by movement of the head.  A dairy cow can easily make up to 36,000 bites per day when in full lactation and being fully fed. So the state of her front incisors is critical to doing all this work.

Digestion

Reticulum or honey-comb bag

 After biting off the pasture, it is mixed with saliva (100L/day for a dairy cow) and masticated (chewed) by the back molars before being swallowed into the rumen (the largest of the four stomach compartments) for the first time. 

After bacterial fermentation in the rumen, the grass is regurgitated back into the mouth in round boluses to be chewed for a second time by the molars and swallowed back via the reticulum (honey comb bag used for tripe) into the omasum with many leaves for finer grinding (called the Bible). Then it passes in finely ground form into the abomasum or fourth stomach for final acid digestion before it’s voyage down the digestive tract into the small and then large intestine.

  

Eating short pasture
 So the first harvesting stage by the incisors is easiest when pasture is long – at least 2500kg DM/ha. So for a cow to eat say 13kg of DM/day for its maintenance and production needs, it has to harvest 90-100kg of wet herbage from the paddock.

It cannot do this effectively when grass is short (below 1100kg DM/ha), and when forced to nibble like a horse.  Horses have both upper and lower incisors so can easily graze down to soil level.  If cattle are forced to eat down to soil level, it’s a major challenge and results in severe damage to their incisors.

Teeth damage in winter

How much soil and teeth wear in this mob?

This incisor damage happens too often during winter when cows are held at very high stocking rates to build up pasture for spring.  These conditions also force cows to eat large amounts of soil, which is not good for their digestion.  On pumice soils, the risk of incisor damage is even greater due to the extra abrasion of the teeth dentine from the pumice.

Teeth damage in drought

Incisor damage also increases in extended summer dry spells and severe droughts when there is little green feed available, and most of what is on offer is very short, dry and wiry dead stems which are tough to tear off even when they can be held by the incisors.

Damage when changing teeth

Cattle are born with 8 temporary milk incisors which are then replaced in pairs from the middle pair outwards at an average of 1.5, 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5 years of age. After about 5 years of age (called full mouth), you cannot tell the age of a beast by its incisors and can only guess based on wear.  Very old cows will have very worn teeth and may have none (called gummies) – but this is prone to great variation and error.

Note that these ages are general averages, and there’s enormous variation between individuals.  As the new teeth push the old ones out and this can pose problems when aging, so beware of this when mouthing a cow.

Gaps between teeth

A good set of incisors has no gaps between the teeth, as when gaps develop, grass gets down between the teeth and the biting action causes it to act as an abrasive – eventually making the gap wider and the teeth forced further apart.

 As the teeth get more spaced out, they are then more prone to becoming loose and being pulled out completely.

Eating supplements

Cows with worn, damaged or missing teeth usually have no problems eating roughages like hay or silage, as there is little initial biting to be done. Similarly they can eat dry concentrates with ease.

Buying beef cattle

Beef cattle are not the problem that dairy cattle are, as beef animals are not kept at high stocking rates and hence forced to graze down so low to the ground.  Even in droughts’ beef cattle can usually find enough long roughage so don’t have to eat down to ground level.

Buying dairy cattle

The big concern is with dairy cows when people may have to pay up to $3000 for top genetics.  At these prices, you don’t want a cow with broken or missing teeth, especially if you are a sharemilker depending on money from the bank to buy the herd.

So the message is if you have to buy a good cow (beef or dairy) to be a foundation cow for the future of the herd, it would be a very good idea to insist that she is guaranteed to have a ‘correct mouth’. 

If you cannot get this guarantee or don’t trust the vendor, then insist that you have permission to mouth all the animals on offer before purchase, as a beast that cannot harvest pasture effectively will have her production compromised.  A sound mouth on a cow is as important as a sound udder and teats, and cows are always sold with these guarantees by all reputable stock companies.

Buying cattle on line

When buying stock on line, especially older animals, it’s equally important to check teeth before purchase, as there is no guarantee, as when buying through a stock firm, that your money and the stock will be protected during the transaction.

Dairy industry changes

Dairy herds have increased rapidly in size over the last decade, and so has the change from herringbone milking sheds to large rotaries with in-line medication systems, so farm staff don’t see the condition of cows’ teeth each day as when orally drenching in the herringbone.

So the chances of cows in the herd with defective incisors will be much less likely to be noted.

Genetics

In sheep it’s well recognised that the shape and closing (occlusion) of the incisors against the dental pad has a genetic component, and rams are regularly inspected and culled for any defects, or with undershot or overshot jaws which are considered to be very serious inherited traits.

It’s highly likely that a similar situation occurs in cattle but it has never been investigated.  When bulls can now have thousands of daughters in herds all over the country, it would seem to be a good idea to give some attention to their teeth, especially when modern dairy husbandry systems at times of the year force cows to eat hard dry herbage very close to the ground.

Examples of teeth

Cows  using their tongues to sweep grass into their mouths

Full mouth of fairly good set of teeth

Cow in serous trouble for grazing.  Missing teeth and remainder worn away

Another cow in serious trouble with critical middle teeth missing

All teeth present but large gaps between teeth for grass to get stuck and increase wear

Full mouth but large gap showing

Four tooth cow with gaps starting to develop

Four tooth cow showing grass stuck between teeth

Good full mouth but top of teeth unevenly worn

Full mouth with grass stuck between teeth

Six tooth mouth with temporary tooth still in gum on right

Full mouth of badly worn teeth

Full mouth of evenly worn teeth

Full mouth of evenly worn teeth