For Animals.

Dairy cows don’t just produce milk because they are cows. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk for their babies. So, farmers forcibly impregnate cows every year to make them keep having babies, and keep making milk. To impregnate the cows, farmers first forcibly obtain semen from bulls. Then they put their whole arm inside the female cows anus to hold her uterus in place before inserting the semen into her vagina. This process is obviously invasive and horrible for the cows. They have to be restrained in what is commonly referred to by farmers as a “rape rack”.

When mother cows give birth, their new born calves are taken away within 24 hours so that the milk that’s meant for them can be taken for humans instead. Cows are incredibly intelligent and maternal beings. When mother cows have their baby taken away they are devastated and often cry out for days on end for their stolen baby to be given back to them.

The calves also cry out for their mums. Like any baby, they are scared and they want the warmth and safety of their mother. Instead, many of them will be killed at just a few days old.

Although some female calves will be kept to join the herd and some calves may be sold to be raised for veal or beef, in Aotearoa around 2 million unwanted calves are killed every year by the dairy industry. These are called “bobby calves”. The only reason they are brought into the world is to make their mothers produce milk. They are simply considered waste products of the industry and so a huge number of them are sent to the slaughterhouse at only a couple days old.

During bobby calf season it’s easy to spot slaughterhouse trucks driving past full of tiny, scared, days-old calves. Like when other farmed animals are transported to the slaughterhouse, the journey for the bobby calves is simply awful. The drive is often many hours long, and they are left with no food or water the whole time. In winter they get incredibly cold and in summer the trucks are like giant ovens. When the calves arrive they are herded inside and to the kill floor. Since they are so young, and hungry for their mothers milk, it’s not uncommon for calves to suckle on the workers fingers, even on the fingers of the person who is about to kill them. The calves are killed in the standard way that is used for large animals: shot in the head with a captive bolt gun to stun them then hung upside down by their leg and stabbed in the throat. The screams and blood and terror of the slaughterhouse is one of these babies’ first experiences, as well as their last.

Calves kept for veal or beef are also killed of course, they are just kept for a bit longer first, before meeting the same horrific end as bobby calves in the slaughterhouse.

Mother cows in the dairy industry also end up at the slaughterhouse. At around 4 to 6 years old, after being impregnated and having their baby stolen from them every year, dairy cows are considered “spent” because they are no longer producing a “profitable” amount of milk. So, they are also sent to endure the horrors of the abattoir, just like their babies did before them.

If you haven’t already, its time to ditch dairy. This industry is literally built on the exploitation of mothers and the killing of their babies. Every glass of milk is a glass of cruelty. Don’t buy it.

for all the animals involved.

Mother cows carry their baby for nine long months just like human mothers do. However, after they go through the pain and trauma of giving birth farmers take their babies away so that humans can drink the milk instead. As you can imagine this is devastating to both the mother cow and her new born calf. Mother cows on dairy farms cry out for days on end for their stolen babies. Soon they will be impregnated again and their heart will be broken all over again when there baby is once again taken away from them.

After 5-7 years cows milk production drops and they are killed.

Bobby Calves

Bobby calves are all the unwanted calves born every year in the dairy industry. The only reason farmers impregnate cows and bring these babies into the world is to cause their mothers to make milk. Once the calves are born they are not allowed to drink the milk that is meant for them, instead they are taken away from their mother within days of being born. Some calves will be kept to endure the same torturous lives as their mothers but the rest, including all the males, are killed.

Slaughter of Cows

Some bobby calves are killed on-farm, but most, along with the “spent” dairy cows, are killed in slaughterhouses. These cows and calves, like other farmed animals, endure long painful journeys on trucks before they reach their final destination. The animals suffer from extreme heat in summer and extreme cold in winter, and they often travel for a very long time without access to any food or water. Many of them will die before they even get to the slaughterhouse. Those who do make it are only met with either another long anxious wait in the holding pens, or the immediate terror of the slaughterhouse. When trucks of bobby calves arrive the calves are starving for their mother’s milk. They often suckle on the fingers of workers and even those who are about to kill them. The calves will usually have only been alive for a couple of days and the slaughterhouse, filled with the screams of other animals and the stench of blood and faeces, will be one of their first, and last, experiences. The confused babies are herded into the abattoir where they are stunned with a captive bolt gun then are stabbed in the throat to bleed to death. The same process happens to the “spent” mother cows. After a miserable life of being sexually violated and having their children taken away from them, they meet the same horrific end as the bobby calves.

If you buy dairy, you are paying for all of the above. Ditch dairy.

1803 – A Short Story of a Mothers Loss