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The B.C. SPCA described it as showing “employees at Chilliwack Cattle Sales using chains, canes, rakes, their booted feet and their fists to viciously whip, punch, kick and beat the dairy cows, including downed and trapped cows who could not escape the abuse.”

A total of 20 counts of animal cruelty have been laid against the farm, owned by the Kooyman brothers, and seven employees. The case is next scheduled for Oct. 20 in Chilliwack provincial court.

“I felt sick to my stomach,” recalled board chair Jeremy Wiebe, who also has a dairy farm in Agassiz. “Farmers by and large have had a pretty good reputation. Part of that is, ‘we love our farms, we love our animals, we love our land.’ For that to get such a heavy hit, to be so tarnished, was hard.”

The case also spurred the dairy industry on Oct. 1, 2014, to adopt a Code of Practice detailing appropriate care of dairy cattle and a system of inspections to ensure farmers’ compliance.

Hoogendoorn said the code was adopted 18 months earlier than originally planned. “We wanted to give consumers some comfort in what we are doing.” That meant farmers didn’t get all the education he would have liked before the inspection program rolled out, which is why so many failed to produce their farm manual of Standard Operating Procedures.

Smaller farms may be less sophisticated, without the latest technology and accustomed to doing things the way they’ve always done them — which can include lack of medication for dehorning calves.