The anonymously-supplied footage was captured in late 2019 at Lochaber Farm, a large intensive goat dairy in Meredith, Victoria, owned by the popular Meredith Dairy brand.

The practice, known as 'disbudding', aims to prevent the growth of the goats’ horns and is performed on days-old females (‘doe kids’) who are intended to join their mothers in the breeding and milking cycle. A hot iron is pressed into the kids' heads to kill the budding cells that would ordinarily grow into horns.

Though clearly cruel, disbudding is common on Australian goat farms and legally permissible due to an exemption for commercially-farmed animals in Victoria and other states’ animal welfare legislation.

Aussie Farms is calling on the Victorian government to remove this exemption, starting with a parliamentary petition (open to Victorian residents - please sign).

The footage comes less than a month after the animal agriculture industry colluded with the national charities regulator, the ACNC, to strip Aussie Farms of its charitable registration and related tax concessions.

This is just another well-kept industry secret that, as usual, has fallen on activists to expose. Self-regulation does not work, it’s time for our state governments – starting with Victoria – to take responsibility and close the legal loopholes that allow these and other horrible things to happen every day in Australian farms and slaughterhouses. Goats and other ‘livestock’ animals are no less capable of feeling pain and fear, no less capable of suffering, than our dogs and cats, and it’s time they were given the same protection under the law.

Businesses that use and exploit animals should no longer be able to do so in secrecy and legal immunity. Increasingly we’re seeing attempts by state and federal governments to stifle this kind of footage and information, to stop it reaching the consumers who unknowingly pay for this cruelty, yet there are no attempts to address the real issue of legalised and systemic abuse.

Learn more about Australian goat farming in our Knowledgebase.