How does eating dairy products (e.g., milk, cheese and ice cream) harm cows? Like all mammals, cows only produce milk after giving birth to feed their babies. In order to keep them lactating year-round, farmers artificially inseminate dairy cows and force them to give birth every year, which is not their natural behavior. A cows gestation period is the same as that of a human mother, and each cow is expected to produce milk during seven of her pregnancys nine months. With genetic manipulation and mechanized production, modern dairy cows produce 100 pounds of milk a day – ten times more than they would produce in nature. While cows can live well into their twenties, they are slaughtered for hamburger when their milk production declines, which usually occurs well before their fifth birthday. To prevent baby cows on factory farms from drinking our milk, they are taken from their mothers within 24 hours of birth. While female calves are raised to eventually replace their mothers as milk producers, most male calves born to dairy cows are raised for veal. These baby cows are chained by the neck inside crates measuring just two feet wide so their muscles wont develop and their flesh will remain tender. When they grow large enough to turn a profit for the producer, these babies are sent to slaughter. idausa.org/vegandays/faq.html
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 23:36:41 +0000
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