What is the truth about dairy cows?

Question

im a vegan so...no dairy, someone today was trying to tell me that dairy cows need to be milked everyday and they produce milk without pregnancy, it just seems impossible to have an animal produce milk without a pregancy.....am i right??

Answer 1

They must have offspring to produce milk.  Cows are milked twice a day in most cases.

Edit  The actual actual truth is somewhere between what it should be and where the detractors say it is.  MUCH better than the detractors believe.

Answer 2

whoever "someone" is, is clearly a fool. Cows are mammals. They produce milk for THEIR babies, so they have to have had a calf first. Someone I know tried to tell me the same stupidity, and insisted that dairy cows are one type of breed that randomly produce milk. Their "proof" of that was that the cows they own (and ate :S ) didn't produce milk. Anyway, it turns out that the cows she owned were male. Not surprising, eh?

You are right.

Dairy cows would usually have their babies drink the milk from them, like a human would, so cows are not supposed to be milked by humans.

People come up with weird things.

there is only one way that a cow could produce milk without offspring. And that is if they were injected with a ridiculous amount of crazy things. And I'd be against that anyway.

Answer 3

Not really

Just like cows the human body will provide for a baby whatever it needs. We can breastfeed until they don't want it anymore I knew a mother that breastfed till the child was 5.

As long as it is milked after pregnancy the body thinks that it is still providing for a baby and will continue to make milk until you stop milking it.

This is why I don't recommend breastfeeding and breastpumping at the same time because your body will make excess milk and your b***s swell uncomfortably and it will be like this till it adjusts to the right amount. Same goes for cows...

Answer 4

A dairy cow has had a calf but it is taken from her pretty much straight away in most cases. Then she is milked daily (or twice a day) and the more that is milked the more that is made.

Answer 5

yes dairy cow need to be artificially inseminated to become pregnant and produce milk and they produce for around 10 months and the babys are taken to veal farms

Answer 6

Milk contributes to unnecessary death and suffering. Just like humans cows only lactate a few months after birth. For cows to produce a constant supply of milk they must be continually artificially inseminated and give birth. Their babies are taken away from them soon after they are born. If they are male they will be trapped in veal crates, fed an anaemic diet and confined in darkness and eventually killed. If they are female they will go on to also be dairy cows (or more correctly milk machines). This separation causes distress to both mother and calf. Drinking milk supports the veal industry. Cows like all mamals must give birth in order to lactate. Cows are also pumped with hormones and antibiotics to increase milk production. This often leads to mastitius, a painful infection of the udders. Constant milk production leaches calcium from cow's bones leaving them eventually lame or crippled. Milk is produced to nourish calves, not human. We are essentially stealing nutrients from baby animals.

Also, dairy production places massive environmental stresses on the planet. Each dairy cow produces 28,000L of waste water per cow per year (dairy shed effluent management guidelines Aust). This waste water comes from processing, runnoff, urine, yard and equipment washdown, plate cooling. It is a rather conservative estimate too, since it doesn't include the water required for feed or crop irrigation, or the water consumed by each head of cattle.

Cows produce between 250 to 500L of methane per cow per day (journal of animal science). Methane is a green house gas that contributes to global warming. Methane is also 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide. (new york times)

Dairy production requires waste lagoons for storing large volumes of untreated excrement and liquid waste. This waste has the potential to run off and pollute streams, ground water, soil, plants ect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr-EyIaXA...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=rel...

Answer 7

sorry you are wrong. cows don't have to be pregnant to give milk. they do have to be milked twice a day.