What the Dairy Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know

Food

Can there be anything more bucolic, more quintessentially countryside than the image of cows in green fields eating grass? Yet over half million of the 2.6 million dairy cows in the UK, will never go outside. It’s what’s known as zero grazing. But to be honest even for those cows who get outside the life of a dairy cow is not great.

Let’s start with the basics and be prepared to be very upset by the images and content below.

RAPE

For a cow to produce milk they must first get pregnant, for 90-95% of all dairy cows this is done by artificial insemination. The process involves forcibly restraining the female cows in what are known in the trade as “rape racks”, a metal cage that stops the cow moving while a someone inserts a hand/arm up their anus to stimulate her reproductive organs while a tube filled with bulls’ semen is put in her vagina.

Links below if you want to see the process. Be warned and be prepared for shocking and upsetting images in the links below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGlZqlMBgaE&t=188s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rlzj7U5z00

Gabriela Penela / We Animals

Havva Zorlu / We Animals

CHILD ABDUCTION AND INFANTICIDE

Once the cow gives birth, the calf is taken from its mother, which causes both of them considerable distress. The females will be raised to become dairy cows.

Jo-Anne McArthur / Animal Equality / We Animals

The male calves are of little value to the dairy farmer, the majority are killed within the first few months of life. In 2022, 60,000 were killed in slaughterhouses and 33,000 were killed on farms before they reached 2 months of age.

Victoria de Martigny / We Animals

Havva Zorlu / We Animals

Andrew Skowron / We Animals

Once the cows have given birth their milk begins to flow. Selective breeding and careful choice of bull’s semen means that milk yields per cow are at an all-time high. The average cow now produces 27 litres of milk a day, 8169 litres pa which is up 20% in the last 20 years.

Andrew Skowron / We Animals

Cows are milked on average twice a day which means that they can carry round up to 20 litres of milk in their udders – that’s heavy almost 20 kilos and unsurprisingly can cause lameness and mastitis which is a painful infection of the udder. According to the NADIS ( National Animal Disease Info Service ) it estimates that between 30- 70 cows per 100 suffer from mastitis.

Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Jo-Anne McArthur/ We Animals

It’s also estimate that a quarter of all dairy cows experience some degree of lameness.

To ensure an unending flow of milk and to keep up the yields, many dairy cows are impregnated again 2 months after giving birth. For 7 months the poor cows then must produce a huge amount of milk and grow a new foetus at the same time. The burden of being pregnant and having to produce milk requires a huge amount of energy and in many cases the cows simply can’t consume enough food to meet this dual burden and this leads to metabolic starvation, with cows looking incredibly thin and more susceptible to illness.

Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals

MURDER

After enduring this cycle of misery for 4-5 years and after having 4 or 5 calves the cow is exhausted. Her milk productivity begins to drop and she is sent to slaughter to become cheap meat.

Havva Zorlu / We Animals

Havva Zorlu / We Animals

The life of a dairy cow is short and cruel, forcibly impregnated again and again so that they produce a near constant stream of milk. Milk which contains pus, blood and all manner of antibiotics. They’re separated from their offspring within hours of giving birth. The offspring shot or forced to endure the same hellish system as their mother. They are treated as nothing more than milk producing machines. These are sentient creatures who show a range of emotions. To find out more follow the links below.

There is another way.

There are plenty of plant based alternatives to dairy, give it them a go- its better for you , better for the planet and better for the cows.