FACTORY FARMING: Cows

Factory farming is about treating animals like commodities, dealing with them in bulk and ensuring swift through-put and a low-priced final product. Milk is such a taken-for-granted part of our diet that people seldom stop to wonder how this product gets into their homes.

THE DAIRY HERD

Conditions

A dairy cow is kept in a continuous cycle of pregnancy, birth and milk production until her health is so compromised that she is no longer useful. At this stage she is sent for slaughter and used for ground beef. In natural conditions a cow lives over 20 years. At a farm she may live between 3-4 years. During that period she will be likely to have given birth to three calves, been pregnant 2 years 3 months and been producing ten times the natural levels of milk for 2 years 6 months. During 1 year and 9 months of her life she will have been both pregnant and producing this obscene level of milk. I am sure you can imagine what sort of effect this has on her physical health.

In winter months, cows are often housed in cubicles. Many such cubicles were not designed with the larger breeds of cow in mind. For instance, in the UK, 87% of these cubicles are too short for the Holstein cow, a very popular dairy breed. Since such cows are still frequently over-wintered in such cubicles, they end up with their hind legs standing for hours in the slurry channel behind the cubicle. This results in horrendous horrible foot conditions and lameness. Cows which are allowed out to pasture or which are accommodated in straw yards are far less likely to suffer from lameness.

Genetic and Manual Manipulation

Dairy cows have been selectively bred to produce more and more milk. In these days a standard dairy cow is likely to produce ten times the amount of milk need to suckle her own calf. This means that her udders have become hideously distended in order to contain all that excess milk and are heavy, stretched and painful. Worse, her back legs can no longer retain their upright position, instead she has spread them wide in order to stand or walk in order to accommodate the additional bulk of her udders. Her standing and walking gait is affected creating an additional burden on a body already carrying the excess weight of her distended udders. This often results in lameness.

In order to breed the ‘best’ dairy herd in a hurry, embryo transfer techniques are often used. This involves pushing the best dairy animals into superovulation and then harvesting their ova and transplanting them in other lower quality cows. This process is so painful for the cow that a epidural anaesthetic has to be administered by law. Some of the best cows are now donating ova on a twice weekly basis.

Go To Page: 1 2