Dairy farms rent their cows? I never gave it much thought but it seemed to me to be a given that dairy farms would buy their cows. This week, I got straightened out, thanks to the newly filed lawsuit, Sunshine Heifers v. Twin Creeks Dairy (assigned to Sr. U.S. District Court Judge Richard H. Kyle, Sr. (D. Minn.)).
I guess it is a matter of synchronizing dairy farm cash flow with milk flow.
Sunshine Heifer’s complaint is short and plain: generally, the allegations are that Twin Creeks rented cows, stopped making payments on them, and also took away Sunshine calves without tagging them as owned by Plaintiff.
Although the complaint is short and plain, the court filing is 181 pages because the complaint attaches many exhibits, the documentation of what is a multi-year multi-million-dollar transaction. I direct your attention to p. 31, “Cow Care Format,” requiring the lessee to house the cows in “dry lot corrals and loafing sheds to maximize comfort and minimize stress,” weekly footbaths, and foot-trimming “at 150 days fresh and at dry off.” I also note that the lessee has the option to buy the cows at the end of the lease or the right to return leased cows “quietly and promptly” (p. 33). I suppose all of this nice treatment is a no-brainer for cash cows.
I will continue to follow this lawsuit. I hope to learn more about the dairy industry but will the case help me understand why return of cows must be done “quietly”? What exactly does that mean? (Here, linked, is some insight into that from the famed Professor Temple Grandin.)