Is there animal cruelty in the process of making dairy products?

Question

Thanks for answering!

Answer 1

Let me ask you this: who did nature intend a mother cow's milk for, and where are they?

Answer 2

Yes.  Cows are milked to within an inch of their lives, then are sold for slaughter.  Human beings are cruel.

Answer 3

when a dairy cow has a baby, the baby is taken away and they will never see eachother again. Dairy cows are injected with hormones which ends up in the milk (need i say more?)

Answer 4

Yes, unfortunately there is.

I would rather eat a steak than a piece of cheese if I had to choose one.

Dairy cows are put through more abuse for a longer period of time and then they still have to go through everything that beef cattle go through when they no longer produce enough milk.

http://www.farmsantuary.org/issues/facto...

http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan

Answer 5

By far!!  Cows, like all mammals, only produce milk when they are pregnant.  And only produce a couple gallons a day.  With all of the horomones they inject into dairy cows, they produce more than 100 gallons a day!  That is cruel.

Answer 6

No - Chickens lay eggs naturaly, Asian Wild Chickens do in the wild but not so often and

Cows love milking - it's relaxing for them, they walk them selves in to the dairy and most dairy products are made from milk.

Its just the intensified farming that harms animal welfare -

Stick to barn or free range eggs

and

less intensively reared cows.

Answer 7

How could there not be? Cows are kept in tiny pens their whole lives with their udders hooked to machines forcing them to milk horribly long hours. Chickens beaks are cut off with no anethesia, they are kept in tiny boxes, the unwanted males are usually just killed off.

Answer 8

of course yes. if u  have a problem eating meat it is just as bad to eat dairy products. by buying dairy products we support the factory farm/ slaughterhouses. cows are supposed to produce milk to feed the babies which they naturally have about one a year but now they are being constantly pregnated and then their calfs are taken away for veal. the cows suffer utter infections and osteoperosis. its not natural for anything  be constantly preganant!

its even worse for chickens , if they stop laying eggs they are deprived of food for up to 14 days to shock their bodies into a new laying cycle.

Answer 9

of course there is!

Answer 10

Of course, unfortunately.

Answer 11

Traditional small dairies, located primarily in the northeast and midwest are going out of business. They are being replaced by intensive 'dry lot' dairies which are typically located in the southwest.

Regardless of where they live, however, all dairy cows must give birth in order to begin producing milk. Today, dairy cows are forced to have a calf every year. Like human beings, the cow's gestation period is nine months long, and so giving birth every twelve months is physically demanding. The cows are also forced to give milk during seven months of their nine month pregnancy. In a healthy environment, cows would live in excess of 25 years, but on modern dairies, they are slaughtered after just 3 or 4 years and then used for ground beef.

With genetic manipulation and intensive production technologies, it is common for modern dairy cows to produce 100 pounds of milk a day -- ten times more than they would produce in nature. The cows' bodies are under constant stress and they are at risk for numerous health problems.

Approximately half of the country's dairy cows suffer from mastitis, a bacterial infection of their udders. This is such a common and costly ailment that a dairy industry group, the National Mastitis Council, was formed specifically to combat the disease. Other diseases, such as Bovine Leukemia Virus, Bovine Immunodeficiency Virus, and Johne's disease (whose human counterpart is Crohn's disease), are also rampant on modern dairies, but they are difficult to detect or have a long incubation period, and they commonly go unnoticed.

A cow eating a normal grass diet could not produce milk at the abnormal levels expected on modern dairies, and so today's dairy cows must be given high energy feeds. The unnaturally rich diet causes metabolic disorders including ketosis, which can be fatal, and laminitis, which causes lameness.

Another dairy industry disease caused by intensive milk production is "Milk Fever". This ailment is caused by calcium deficiency, and it occurs when milk secretion uses calcium faster than it can be replenished in the blood.

Although the dairy industry is familiar with the cows' health problems and suffering associated with intensive milk production, it continues to subject cows to even worse abuses in the name of increased profit. Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), a synthetic hormone, is now being injected into cows to get them to produce even more milk. Besides adversely affecting the cows' health, BGH also increases birth defects in their calves.

Veal Calves

Veal is a by-product of the dairy industry. In order for dairy cows to produce milk, they must be impregnated and give birth. Half of the calves born are female, and they are used to replace older cows in the milking herd.

The other half are male, and because they are of no use to the dairy industry, most are used for beef or veal.

Within moments of birth, male calves born on dairies are taken away from their mothers and loaded onto trucks. Many are sold through auction rings where they are subjected to transportation and handling stresses. The fragile animals are shocked and kicked, and when they can no longer walk, they are dragged by their legs or even their ears.

Every year, approximately one million calves are confined in crates measuring just two feet wide. They are chained by the neck to restrict all movement, making it is impossible for them to turn around, stretch, or even lie down comfortably. This severe confinement makes the calves' meat "tender" since the animals muscles cannot develop.

Published scientific research indicates that calves confined in crates experience "chronic stress" and require approximately five times more medication than calves living in more spacious conditions. It is not surprising then, that veal is among the most likely meat to contain illegal drug residues which pose a threat to human health.

Researchers have also reported that calves confined in crates exhibit abnormal coping behaviors associated with frustration. These include head tossing, head shaking, kicking, scratching, and stereotypical chewing behavior. Confined calves also experience leg and joint disorders and an impaired ability to walk.

In addition to restricting the animals' movement, veal producers severely limit what their animals can eat. The calves are fed an all liquid milk-substitute which is purposely deficient in iron and fiber. It is intended to produce borderline anemia and the pale colored flesh fancied by 'gourmets'. At approximately sixteen weeks of age, these weak animals are slaughtered and marketed as "white" veal (also known as "fancy", "milk-fed", "special fed", and "formula fed" veal). Besides the expensive veal which comes from calves who are kept in small wooden crates, "bob" veal is the flesh of calves who may be slaughtered at just a few hours or days old. While these calves are spared intensive confinement, they are still subjected to inhumane transport, handling, and slaughter, and many die before reaching the slaughterhouse.

Answer 12

Yes.  And the egg industry, too.

Check out the answers to this question, asked earlier.  There is a lot of information here about the horrors of the dairy industry: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 13

Unfortunately yes. This video mentions it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIjanhKqV...

Btw, I totally agree with Holly. You go girl!