By rssfeeds-admin The dairy in question – Vera Goat Dairy.
The activists claim the “Certified Humane” dairy is guilty of animal cruelty, but Meyenberg, the company that contracts the dairy, calls the accusations “baseless.”
“Meyenberg products carry the ‘Certified Humane’ label. We are in our third year of certification, and we take that seriously – because our customers have come to expect it and because we genuinely care about the animals on these farms. We believe that every animal deserves to be treated with dignity and have sanitary and safe living conditions,” the company stated in an email sent to YourCentralValley.com.
Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) says the label is a marketing scam, so under the cover of darkness, the activists took two kid goats who they say were exhibiting signs of respiratory infections.
The group says Tuesday’s visit was the culmination of a months-long investigation into Vera Goat Dairy during which they allegedly found “dozens of dead mother and baby goats are regularly dumped into an illegal dead pile on the property, indicating that the operation is experiencing high rates of mortality.”
Per the EPA, animals that die on the owner’s property can be composted on that same property, but it must not be done “in a manner causing flow, ponding, or surfacing on lands not owned or under the control of the discharger,” outlined in Discharge Prohibition A.6.
While no recent reports have been made against the dairy, in 2021, the farm (previously known as Milk Flow Dairy) had three violations reported against it by the State Water Resources Control Board, including being in violation of Prohibition A.6 for “Goat remains found being composted on the northeast side of the Dairy.”
As for the “high mortality rates,” according to Meyenberg, the mortality rate on the farm is lower than the state average (4.9% for adult goats and 12.3% for juvenile goats).
“Most months this year, the mortality rate of the herd at this farm – adults and juveniles – has been less than 2%. In one month, it was less than 1%,” Meyenberg detailed in an email to YourCentralValley.com.
While the mortality rates are allegedly low, DxE claims that testing at UC Davis showed that two goats collected from the dead pile were infected with coccidia parasites and marked emaciation, with no fat reserves and severe muscle atrophy, suggesting that they may have starved to death. They say one of the goats also had bacterial bronchopneumonia, most likely caused by Escherichia coli bacteria.
DxE also said that cattle were documented grazing on a recently covered dead pile, and that dogs on the property were documented eating the bodies in the dead pile.
Meyenburg denied these claims, stating, “We can confirm that no cattle are residing on this farm.”
While cattle may not reside on the farm, one of the dairy’s 2021 violations included, “Fields claimed for the Dairy are being utilized for grazing by the adjacent Bovine Feedlot facility, and the South field is receiving uncontrolled wastewater discharges with no means of agronomic application.”
The dairy was also cited for “Standing wastewater in the corrals more than 72 hours after the last precipitation.”
Despite the government-reported citations, in an email to YourCentralValley.com, Meyenberg stated that, “The farm in question received no citations in 2021.”
Vera Goat Dairy is one of 25 farms that supply Meyenberg Dairy, the country’s largest goat milk producer. Meyenberg milk is marketed as “Certified Humane” and sold at several local outlets.
YourCentralValley.com attempted to reach out to the owners of Vera Goat Dairy, but no company webpage is listed. The neighboring cattle farm, owned by one of Vera Dairy’s owners, and a Corcoran dairy, owned by the farm’s other owner, also did not have listed websites.
YourCentralValley.com also attempted to contact a farm where one of Vera Goat Dairy’s owners is an operator, but the listed line is out of order. We also used an online database to find the owners’ numbers, but the lines were either disconnected or no longer belonged to the sought-after parties.
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