I would like some proof about why a cow needs to be milked?!
Answers: I would like a website or something. I had no idea that cows NEEDED to be milked...why is this? Give me a reputable website someone...thank you
Cows only need to be milked because we mess about with them.
Cows are given highly enriched foods ( and in some countries such as the USA they are given hormones ) to increase milk production. We then proceed to take away thier young so the milk needs to be taken from the cow.
Its a bit like a poisoner offering you an antidote. Perhaps they shouldn't have poisoned you in the first place ?
Here are my other comments on the milk industry:
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"
Protein 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, although some farms iin the UK started ( in 2006 ) shipping them to Continental Europe for veal again. 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 in country. They are either killed, or shipped out. 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 feed 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.
truwicca... Obviously your boobs have not sprouted yet. A cow needs to be milked once gestation is complete as they are producing mass qauntities for the young they just produced. If a cow never goes through gestation, then perhaps this would not be a problem. At least, not for very long, because then there wouldn't be any more cows....
**I like maggies answer better. It's not quite as mean...She is right though, cows don't "need" to be milked (if they have a young one to consume).
There is no such site, because all mammals that lactate logically should stop lactating after they wean their young. We only prolong a cow's lactation for our own selfish needs. Typically if a cow has calves back to back she'll continue to lactate because of the hormonal changes in her body, though, but they don't need us to interfere and "relieve the pain" and all those other lame excuses.
If dairy cows aren't milked, yes, their udders might get inflamed but that's just because they've been forced to lactate and produce milk way beyond the extent of what nature designated them for. When a cow weans her calf the calf slowly just sucks less and less, so her body makes less and less milk. It's logical. Nature designed cows to be able to exist without man's interference, they can safely and easily stop lactating if they want to. Cows won't explode, they won't die, they won't get sick - maybe a very sudden stop could cause mastitis, but that can be treated.
Pain comes with the package of weaning your babies and that's the way it is - ask any mother that's breast fed. It'll hurt but it's supposed to happen. Cows aren't milk machines, they fed and weaned their young for thousands and thousands of years before man decided to look at their udders and go, " Hmm, wonder if that tastes good".
Great answer Maggie!
Cows only produce milk as a result of becoming pregnant. This is why veal is generally considered a byproduct of the dairy industry rather than the beef industry. Pregnant cows give birth and the solution to this "problem" was veal.
Now that you have pregnant cows, mother nature causes the cows to produce milk with the expectation of feeding their young. If you don't milk a cow, their body will stop making more milk (just like any other mammal on the planet). So, we have to milk a cow to keep the milk flowing to supply the dairy industry with milk.
So, to answer the crux of your question, Cows don't NEED TO BE MILKED. We milk them to keep the milk flowing. Milk is big business.
cows are artificially impregnated so that they will always produce milk.... if we didnt do that they wouldnt produce milk since they do not need to nurture their young.
Cows are also given hormones so they'll produce even MORE milk to meet human (or is it corporate?) demand for more milk. So if a cow is producing far more milk than necessary, yeah, she may need to be milked or she'll endure quite a bit of discomfort. But in nature, she produces only enough to feed her baby--as all mammals do.
Don't forget that today's dairy cows are not natural creatures of this earth. For ages they have been bred and inbred to be champion milk-makers like no other animal. Dairy cows don't exist in the wild. Their only purpose is to be milked. If they don't produce milk, they are culled from the herd (i.e., killed). Dairy cows are seldom kept as pets. If there were no dairies, the breeds we know and and take for granted, like Guernsey, Holstein, and Jersey, would cease to exist except in history books.
This is only what I think....
Once upon a time cows, as all other mammals, did not need to be milked.
My theory is that since farm cows are force fed or injected hormones or other enhancers, for increased milk production, then they do indeed need to be milked, because they are producing more milk than needed for their young.
Hmmm is this an ethical question or a vetrinary one?
On a Vertrinary level - Yes, dairy cows do need to be milked regularly. Regularly scheduled milking is good for the health and comfort of the cow and keeps the level of milk production up.
Ethically it's a bit more complicated. Humans and domesticated animals have a symbiotic realtionship going back at least 5000 in our recorded history. Humans need the milk, meat, hides, bones and scat of cattle to survive. In turn for thexe things humans kept the species alive and defened them from predators. The fact that cows are edible gaurenteed the perpetuation of their speices. The same situation is tru for chickens, pigs and other livestock.
The utility of animals meant that they got a helping hand in surviving the evolutionary game.
On the other side of things... Many factory style farms are barely humane places. Most modern independant dairy farmers take VERY good care of their cows. It is in their best interst to do so as the cows are the farmer's livelyhood. It is usually only in factory farms where animals are routinly abused. The workers and supervisors at such places are employees and as such have no vested interest in the welfare of the livestock.
If you want to stop unnescisary harm being inflicted on animals in the agriculture industry then you need to lobby your government to curb corporate agribuisness. Keep in mind that family farms produce costlier food. Every thing has its tradeoffs. The cows traded off being eaten for continued existence.
Maggie,
I got news for you. Cows are milk producers.
Lactating, or fresh cows must either be milked, or suckled by their calves on a regular basis, otherwise, the udder may burst, killing the cow, slowly and painfully.
Doc