Milk from cows.?!
Answers: I heard that most milk that is produced comes from pregnant cows. It was a vegitarian that said it and I wondered if it was her way of putting me off drinking it. Which, if it's true would put me off. Any farmers there know the truth?
Here are issues about the milk industry. This is an answer i've used a few times since first typing it and i think its relavent, there is far more to put you off milk other than the fact that the cow has to have just given birth to produce milk.
I am writing this because i have first hand knowledge - owning an arable farm in amongst dairy and beef farms, seeing them approx every other day because we visit them to see about rescue Jerseys. 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.
Hormone enriched feed
The feed they are given is enriched with artificial growth foods. these are always 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.
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.
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 every check the cattle....Talking to one farmer last night ( at our farmers season dinner ) he has just lost 17 cattle in 2 months. He only phoned DEFRA after the tenth one died, until then, he didn't care why they died, it was just a fact of business to him.
removing calves from mothers after colostrum feed
This is stressful, cows bawl for weeks for thier young, calling them to be fed. Obviously the calve 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.
No, Ive never heard of milk from pregnant cows. However,cows must have had a baby first to produce milk.
You have to get them pregnant every 2 years to keep milk production high. They make milk for their babies, so why would they make high volumes of milk if it has been years since they gave birth? That's why they need to have another calf to speed things up.
After a few pregnancies, they start to go downhill and they are slaughtered for low quality beef and leather.
Anyone that thinks a mammal such as a cow or woman will give the same amount of milk years after giving birth as what they provide within the first year is living in a fantasy land.
http://meat.org
Apparantly true in some cases.
I am vegetarian and no this is not true but breast feeding to the millions.
A cow produces milk after a calf is born. After a few weeks the cow is put in calf again so your friend is right. This is the same for ALL milk, whether in the wild or on farms. Why would it matter to you if a cow is pregnant or not when she produces milk? Milk is milk.
some are injected to make them pregnant to make them produce milk, the same as with humans, they would not be able to produce milk without having had children
Not a farmer,but can second whatever you heard is correct.
we did have a farm and its true that most milk produced comes from a delivered cow,not pregnant.
You're right. Most cows are artificially inseminated. They are treated like machines because, as you can imagine, milk is always needed. When their production declines, they are usually sent to slaughter and used in another way. They don't waste anything - everything is used in some way. It's disgusting!! If a cow has a female, she will join other dairy cows and probably suffer the same outcome; if male, he becomes a veal calf and is chained up in close quarters to prevent the least movement possible to keep his meat tender. I'm currently still a vegetarian but plan to be vegan one day - hopefully soon b/c all of this makes me sick to think about it.
A cow produces milk to feed it's calf. It will produce milk for about 12 to 16 months after giving birth.
But gestation period for a new calf is about 9 months.
Usually the cows are not milked for a short period before the birth of the calf.
So one needs to impregnate the cow again about 3 to 7 months after the previous calf to have a near constant supply from the cow.
Now for the math, if the cow is pregnant for 9 out of every 12 to 16 months, the milk produced is from 75 to 56% while the cow is pregnant. Certainly more than half...
why are you asking about dairy in a vegan forum?
you do realize it's animal product... RIGHT?
You know, I asked my friend, who is from a village farming community in India the same question. He looked at me like I was a complete idiot.
He told me that of course the cow has to be pregnant to produce milk -- the same as with all other mammals. After they have given birth the baby will still suckle for quite some time after that, for about a year I think he said, then slowly milk will stop being produced, but if you have many cows, there are always some that are pregnant, or with baby.
In milk factories, they just inject the cows with hormones to fool the body into thinking that they are pregnant. Before this, they would artificially inseminate them.
The dairy farm just down the street from where I live has a huge turnover of cows. All baby females go on to produce milk, and all males go on to become cat food, which they also sell there along with manure. There are no bulls there doing their thing.
What you heard is correct and anyone who tells you differently is either ignorant or in denial. No animal, including cows and humans, will produce milk if they haven't produced offspring to feed it to. Dairy cows are artificially inseminated so there is a constant supply of milk. Their offspring are taken away from them when they're born so they don't drink the milk which is rightfully theirs. Instead they're raised as dairy cows if they're female or shot or sold to the veal industry if they're male.
thats not true, that would hurt the calf and farmers want more babies not retarded ones, literally!
It is not from pregnant cows it is from a cow who has given birth, just like a human female has milk after she has given birth. The cruel thing is the calf is deprived of it's mothers milk and if it is a male calf on a dairy farm is often slaughtered soon after being born.
I'm NOT a dairy farmer , however, I live in the middle of dairy land in Idaho....and I do know that they do not milk pregnant cows....they milk them AFTER they have their calves and the calves have had a chance to drink off the colostrum from the mother cow...then the calves are taken to calf farms and hand fed until time to sell.
Actually milk comes from cows that are either pregant or who have given birth because that is just about the only way they can produce milk, if you go to certain farm tours they would tell you. If you want to drink it you can.
mammals produce milk when they are pregnant. cows need to be impregnated often to keep producing milk (this is where veal comes from) no im not trying to put you off, im not vegetarian myself.
Cows don't just naturally produce milk all the time. They produce breastmilk for their babies right after they give birth, just like humans. Instead, we take their babies away to become veal and the like, and take their milk for ourselves.
You wouldn't suck your mom's tit now, why would you drink the breastmilk of a whole other species?
Cows like women only lactate or become milkable after calving. So technically they ae not pregnant. Just another veggie myth.
Here in Ohio we use mostly Holstein cows...and no they are not pregnant.
my roomie grew up on a farm and said that they still milk the cows while they are pregnant but they do not get the cows pregnant to milk them.