Milk Group Agrees to Phase Out Tail Docking

On July 23, the Board of Directors at dairy group National Milk Producers Federations approved a resolution to officially designate its oppositional stance toward the practice of tail docking. Now included in the new documentation of the group’s National Dairy FARM Program is the recommendation that farmers discontinue tail docking by the year 2022, except in the case of traumatic injury to an animal that necessitates the procedure. NMPF represents many of the largest dairy cooperatives in the nation, and its position now corresponds with that of the American Veterinary Medical Assocation and the American Association of Bovine Practitioners. In 2009, California banned the practice entirely, and Ohio followed suit in 2011.