Milk doesn't involve killing animals, does it? Surely no animals are harmed? Unfortunately both cows and their calves end up at the slaughterhouse, well before their natural time.
A newborn calf. Before the day is over he or she will be taken away from the comfort of a mother. A young calf bellows for the mother who has been taken away from him.
Like all mammals, cows only produce milk to feed their young. Farmers use artificial insemination to ensure that cows give birth once a year and can be milked regularly. The calves are taken away from their mothers within 12 hours of birth because the cows’ milk is destined for human consumption. These small babies are distressed by life without the security of their mothers. Cows are also distressed when the maternal instincts awakened by giving birth can’t be expressed.
Dairy calves, unless they are raised to replace cows in the herd, are an unwanted by-product of the milk industry. Almost 1 million calves a year in Australia are trucked off to slaughter, some as young as 5 days old. Some male calves are raised for 4 months for veal. All cows are killed when they are past their peak production. Around a quarter of the cows in a herd die or are sent off to slaughter each year.
Young calves being transported to slaughter. Some of these animals as young as 5 days old don't survive they journey. Photos: Farm Sanctuary
Modern dairy cows are bred and fed to produce extreme quantities of milk. Compare their huge udders to the udders of beef cattle, who produce milk only to nurse their calves. According to Dairy Australia, average milk production by each cow has doubled since 1980. The huge udder leads to stretching, and dairy cows are susceptible to mastitis, painful infections of the teats and udder. The risk of lameness, another painful condition, is increased in dairy cows.
Health problems are further increased by ‘seasonal calving’, where farmers try to ensure that all calves are born around the same time, regardless of when they were conceived. Births are induced in late pregnancies by hormone injections. The result is an increase in stillbirths and premature, weak calves, many of whom are killed at birth. They may be shot, stunned with a captive bolt gun and then bled out, or killed by a blow to the head. Induced cows have increased health problems such as retained foetal membranes and infections. Seasonal calving is still practised by some farmers in Victoria.
Modern cows have been bred to produce large quantities of milk. Standing around on hard concrete for milking twice a day increases the risk of lamesness caused by a painful hoof infection (PETA).
Surgical mutilations on dairy cows
In Victoria, some farmers still remove the tails of dairy cows, either with a knife or rubber rings that cause the tail to wither and fall off. They believe that tail docking keeps cows cleaner and produces better milk quality, but all the evidence shows that tail docking makes no difference. What it does undoubtedly do is cause pain to the cow, both immediately and long-term due to the abnormal masses of nerve endings that grow in the tail stump. Docked cows also can’t flick away biting flies, so they suffer more fly irritation.
Dairy cattle are routinely dehorned, usually while still young. A hot iron or a scoop is used to destroy the horn buds. This mutilation is extremely painful, because horns are part of the skull and are supplied with blood vessels and nerves. No pain relief is given when horns are removed even though effective drugs are available.
You don’t need milk for strong bones
People are advised that they must eat dairy products to avoid osteoporosis and hip fractures in old age. In fact, countries with the highest intake of milk also have the highest rate of hip fractures. One reason for this is that more calcium is excreted when the diet is high in animal protein. It is better to get calcium from plant sources such as nuts and seeds and leafy green vegetables.
Left. The graph shows that as people’s milk consumption goes up, so does their rate of hip fractures.
The dairy industry is bad for the environment
Although there is a grain shortage in the world, each dairy cow in Australia in 2009 ate 1.5 tonnes of grain. One quarter of Australia's milk comes from irrigated pasture In Victoria and southern New South Wales. The dairy industry uses much more water in the Murray Darling Basin than cotton, twice as much as the rice industry, and 9 times as much as the fruit and vegetable industries combined. Urban water restrictions won't make much difference when the dairy industry uses more water than all the towns and cities in Australia combined. In addition, the 1.6 million dairy cows in Australia produce large quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas much more powerful than CO2.
Try recipes without dairy. Go to:
Fast Facts
- There were 1.6 million dairy cows in Australia in 2008/9.
- A dairy farm on average has 214 cows, who are milked twice a day by milking machines in large sheds.
- Some large farms have more than 500 cows.
- Each cow produces an average of 5750L of milk a year
- In 2006/7, 0.9 million calves were slaughtered in Australia.
Have a look at the photogallery:
Farm Sanctuary
For more information go to:
- DairyCruelty
- Leaflet: Cow's milk is for calves
- Factsheet: The dairy industry (4 pages including references)
- Leaflet: Milking the Murray
See a video clip of calves transported to slaughter.
May 2010
