Who can give me some info on the dairy industry in the UK?!
Answers: I'm looking for mortality rates in lactating cows, how many male calves are killed or reared for veal (either in UK or on the continent) After some facts and figures please.
Check Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_indus...
Gosh, I wish too that there were more answers. But I think its like 12 in the morning there right, so most people would be in bed right now. - I use to live in London.
I know that in the US there are 10 billion animals killed. 35 MILLION are cows.
One theory - So by doing basic math, lets say half of all cows born are males, that would be 17.5. Majority of male cows are used as veal. so in the USA 17.5 million cows are veal.
Okay now this my theory, I am sure there are actual facts of the veal in England.
Sorry I could not be of more help!
In the UK i do not beleive we send any bull calves to veal anymore.
These are not facts, but obsevations from my 3-times a week trip to dairy farms:
( aplogies to those that have seen this answer many times before, but its relavent again so i'm reposting it )
The farms I'm talking about here are nationally recognised as being the best in the industry, they have viewing gallaries and consistantly win awards so we are not talking about the average or less, we are talking about the BEST here. And this is UK farms which are recognised as having the best husbandry in the world.
Artificial incemination every year
Cows would naturally calve every 2-3 years. Dairy farms artificially inceminate them every 11 months. This causes excessive stress on the cows body, increses the chance of prolapse and generally "wears them out"
Hormone enriched feed
The feed they are given is enriched with artificial growth foods. these are generally made with cattle meat protiens.
Bribe/feed caged carousels
These suck. They are large rotating carousels where the cows are caged in a space where they cannot move. They have "black boxes" on thier legs which communicate with the main operating computer. They are fed just the right amount of food depending on how much milk they gave yesterday. They have added growth food if thier production drops
One person can milk about 400 cattle on a carousel so there is no time for checking the animals health - they just milk them dry and kick them out.
killing bulls, excess calves and free martins at 1 week old
All bulls are killed at 1 week old. They do not keep any back for breeding as they bring in new blood lines. In the UK we don't use dairy bull calves for veal anymore. Bull calves go to make low quality leather products such as cheap sofas.
They kill all free martins as there is a good chance they will be barren.
Strangly, they feel these animals with colostrum at birth to keep them alive, but then kill them a week later.
excess feeding to produce 60 lites of milk per day
The growth food is all designed to produce excess milk. Cows are naturally designed to produce about 15 litres. The european targets for 2009 are set at 90 litres, i don't think it need me to tell you if this is heading the right or wrong direction.
intensive rearing means low husbandry checks
As mentioned above, most automatic dairies have one milkmaid per session, thats it. I know a dairy farm with 1200 cattle and 3 employees. Tell me how they can ever check the cattle....
removing calves from mothers after colostrum feed
This is stressful, cows bawl for weeks for thier young, calling them to be fed. Obviously the calf cannot "run to mom" because its in dog food by now.
killing the cow at 7 years old
Cows can naturally live to 20 years old. Production dairy cows are killed after 4-6 births so are never kept after 7 years old.
Hope that helps.