The Milk Marketing Fraud

Document sections:

• Rich Milk, Poor Cow
• And what happens to the calf?
• Dairy Harm
• For more information

Rich Milk, Poor Cow

A continual flow of milk is extracted from the dairy cow only by subjecting her to yearly pregnancies, the first beginning at around 2 years of age, each lasting nine months. After giving birth she will be milked for 10 months, but during the third month she will be put in calf. Only 6-8 weeks after drying out she will give birth again. So for 6-7 months each year she is milked whilst pregnant.

As one of 3 million milk-machines in the UK she is likely to be yielding up an unnatural 6000 litres per year - 5 times as much as a cow in the 1950s. Milked twice, even three times a day, her full udder can weigh the equivalent of 50 bags of sugar; in extreme cases it may even drag the floor. Her unique stomach, designed for digesting grass, cannot cope with the vast quantities needed for such high output so in order to reach higher yields she is also fed concentrated pellets of imported proteins and home-grown cereal.

Even then her production may outstrip her appetite. In order to keep up she will have to break down body tissue: she will be "milking off her back". The result can be one of many bovine disorders - ketosis - an outstanding problem of early lactation. Rumen acidosis, induced by large helpings of quickly fermented carbohydrate, is an important cause of the foot condition, laminitis. An estimated 25% of all cows are treated for lameness each year, and all foot ailments are likely to be aggravated by the farm environment, where large herds now spend longer periods on concrete with their hooves immersed in excrement. With 60-100 cows (in a typical herd) each producing 40 litres of slurry per day a breeding ground is quickly established for udder infections like mastitis, and only a wide range of antibiotics, other drugs and dietary supplements keep milk fever, staggers, liverfluke, lungworm and pneumonia in check.

The long suffering dairy cow is being pushed to her limits. Each year over 20% are culled from the national herd due to infertility, disease or poor yield. After 4-5 calves have been taken from her she will end up between two bits of bread or wrapped in tin. So much for the pictures of contentment.

And what happens to the calf?

• The least healthy bobby calves will be sent to market to be slaughtered for pet food; to provide veal for veal & ham pies; or for rennet to be extracted from their stomachs for cheesemaking.
• Some females will be reared on milk substitutes to become dairy herd replacements and begin, at 18-24 months of age, the cycle of continual pregnancies.
• Some will be sold at market at 1-2 weeks of age for rearing as beef in fattening pens and slaughtered after 11 months, often without sight of pasture. Up to 80% of the beef produced is a by-product of the dairy industry.
• A few will be selected for rearing as bulls, spending their lives in solitary confinement serving canvas 'cows' and rubber tubes. Artificial insemination is now responsible for 65-75% of all conceptions in the dairy herd.
• Around 270,000 unwanted calves are reared for veal, all but around 12% of them spending their short miserable lives in narrow crates (5'x2') on wooden slats and without straw. Whilst some 10,000 suffer such a fate in Britain the rest are exported for the purpose. In solitary confinement, unable to turn around or groom themselves they must drink the only diet they are allowed - a milk substitute gruel. Deliberately kept short of the iron and fibre which would redden their fashionably white flesh, they will suffer from sub-clinical anaemia and gnaw at the crates and their own hair for the roughage they crave. Fed large doses of hormones and antibiotics to promote growth and prevent the onset of infections caused by the stress of confinement abnd malnutrition, they will suffer scours, pneumonia, diarrhoea, vitamin deficiency, ringworm, ulcers or septicaemia. After 14 weeks, barely able to walk, they are taken over long distances to slaughter, many end up on hotel dinner plates back in Britain.

But it is just part of a callous system that casts off young animals in order to produce a commodity, cow's milk, that no-one needs, no-one but the calf.

Dairy Harm

Cow's milk is for calves but hardly any calf gets to drink it. It's put in cartons and bottles instead, for only humans steal the milk of another species and base an industry on the needless theft.

Enquirer's Pack

Health:

Answers many doubts as to whether a vegan diet can supply our nutritional needs.

Animal Rights:

Explains why veganism is the logical conclusion to any commitment to animal rights.

Ecology:

Details the benefit to our planet as a whole of a large scale adoption of veganism.

World Food Problem:

Explains the link between animal farming and human famine.

You may already be convinced of the strength of the vegan case. If so, please join the Society and add your voice to the growing chorus of concern over the appalling violence inflicted daily on all forms of life. A new more caring way of living is not only possible, but is made a reality by all those already commited to veganism. Please stand up and be counted - join us now, and help to reduce the suffering in the world, of both humans and non-human animals.