Dairy's Dark Side

Canada’s largest dairy farm crippled by abuse allegations from undercover animal rights worker on his first mission

Brian Hutchinson
Friday, Jun. 20, 2014

A worker walks past a dairy cow milker at the Kooyman family dairy farm in Chilliwack, B.C., Tuesday, June, 10, 2014. Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — Doug was raised on a small family farm and knows a thing or two about dairy cattle. Until very recently, he’d never encountered anything like Chilliwack Cattle Sales (CCS), which runs a giant milking operation an hour’s drive east of Vancouver.

CCS milks an astonishing 3,500 cows at its main location outside Chilliwack. It’s the largest single dairy farm in Canada, where the average operation runs just 77 cattle. Thanks to Doug, CCS is now the nation’s most notorious dairy, where unskilled, teenaged workers ran wild and allegedly tortured helpless Holsteins. A place where milkers “exhibited the same cruel and often sadistic behaviours,” according to one startled veterinarian. “This suggests that the conduct is part of the culture at this facility, and not simply the modus operandi of a rogue or mentally unstable individual.”

Just as disturbing are suggestions that CCS is not the only dairy operation where animal abuse takes place. Those familiar with large-scale farming in B.C.’s Fraser Valley, where most of the province’s dairy is produced, say the mistreatment of cows and other animals is no longer that uncommon. A culture of neglect has developed on some farms and bad behaviour is overlooked, says one veteran of the local dairy industry, who asked that his name not be published. “I’ve noticed this downhill spiral [leading to] to animal abuse,” he says. “It’s tied to farms getting bigger and cutting corners. Family-owned farms might have a father and son working with the livestock, and maybe a well-trained, hired person making a good income. But the big farms hire kids who work these long hours and night shifts when no one is watching.”

Doug watched, for an entire month. He works for Mercy For Animals Canada, an animal rights organization that sends operatives into the field to spy on farmers and livestock handlers.

CCS was a random target. Although its owner — Chilliwack’s Kooyman family — was once accused and later absolved of animal mistreatment, and the family’s meat processing plant near Vancouver is scheduled for trial next year on 11 counts of selling beef contaminated with E coli bacteria, CCS was not on the activist group’s radar.

On April 30, Doug — a pseudonym — drove up to the Chilliwack farm and applied for a job as a CCS milker. He had no resume, no references, but was hired on the spot and started work the next day. His wage was $16 per hour, typical for an unskilled dairy farm worker. But as a freshly-trained spy conducting his first-ever undercover investigation, Doug struck a rich vein.
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