Do cows suffer to provide us milk and cheese?

Question

I'd recently read that cows are artificially inseminated yearly to keep their milk flowing. They say dairy cows usually live 3-4 years of this nonstop birthing and milking and are then sold for burger meat.

Can anyone site some non-propaganda sources which provide the facts? Are cows living on organic farms experiencing the same fate?

Oy vey - I opened up a can of worms with the word "suffer". What I want to know is the truth about the milking process in an organic vs. non-organic farm.

Answer 1

I'm an agricultural engineer and a grain farmer.
I don't have milk cows but both in Unversity and work I've been around with milk cows.
Milk cows are inseminated when you want to improve your genetics. Some farmers just mate them with their bulls if they are genetically decent.
In average a milk cow gets pregnant every 13 months, so you can say a year.
That is so they produce continuously milk.
Their production peak occurs in their 3rd month of lactation, after that, the production per day starts to descend slowly until a point where the cow gets "dried out" by the farmer to let her enter in heat again.
If you compare that to the natural herds of bovines (buffalos, bisons or zebues) they usually get pregnant once a year too, unless that mother is suffering hunger.
So in that case is about the same, they are prepared for that.
What it changes from natural is the amount of milk produced by these cows.
They have been selected and improved in production for many, many generations until achieve the individual production they show in these days.
Sometimes, their body is not as prepared as it should be to resist this, so their legs and breasts suffer in some cases.
Genetics are also oriented to select animals that resist higher productions too.
They live many years more that those you mentioned.
Usually a milk cow lasts around 9 years.
They are monitored all the time for any kind of diseases.
So, in consequence, I'd say that other animals suffer a lot more than milk cows to provide us food.
Chickens only live 52 to 55 days until they are slaughtered.
Pigs only live a few months also.
Plus, their facilities are always crowded.

Conclusion is that in order to get cheaper food for all us, sadly some animals have to live shortly or even suffer.
Unless people is willing to pay for food the triple of what they do now, things will continue like that.

ORGANIC OR NON ORGANIC HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM SUFFERING OR NOT.
ACTUALLY THEY SUFFER MORE IN AN ORGANIC FARM BECAUSE THEY CAN'T RECIEVE PROPER MEDICATION TO GET CURED.

Answer 2

All mammals give milk only after getting pregnant and giving birth. Back in the day, dairy farmers kept a bull to impregnate the cows, but bulls are dangerous and impractical, so yes, dairy cows are artificially inseminated. They are milked for 10 months and then "dried out" (not milked) for 2 months before their calf is due. Someone like me who kept a family cow would call the AI man too. Remember that in the wild this would all happen naturally.

The lifespan of a dairy cow varies. In intense factory farms where the cows never even go outdoors, lifespan can be 3-5 years. On a family farm like the ones around me, a cow might live 5-8 years or more. Family farms are more humane but they are rapidly disappearing.

A recent practice among factory farms is to inject the cows with Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) to increase milk supply. This is an insane drive for profit because the modern cow already gives immense amounts of milk, and adding BGH puts stress on the cow and she dies much sooner. We don't even know for certain that such milk is safe to drink. There's a movement to refuse milk from BGH-treated cows and some dairies proudly advertise that their milk is BGH-free.

Organic farms are a bit different, but be careful what you call "organic." There's no agreement on a government level as to what that means, and chains like Whole Food Grocer carry milk that is just a step away from factory farms. In Maine, the label "organic" carries strict specifications. Cows must be fed organic hay and grains and graze on organic pastures. They are given no hormones, and if they are medicated, the milk must be discarded until all traces of the meds are out of their system.

Cows on organic and family farms do not suffer. They live a life that is close to natural. Cows on factory farms, on the other hand, are kept in unnatural environments and pushed hard to produce. They may not "know" they are suffering because they have never known anything different but they are still raised in cruel conditions. I for one think this is unethical, but given our drive for the almighty dollar, I don't see it coming to an end any time soon.

P.S. Yes, spent cows are sent to slaughter where they turn up in stew meat or burgers. And spent hens go to Campbell's. That's how we do it in America....

Answer 3

Do you think if cows were left up to their own devices the would join Planned Parenting? Actually if a cow isn't milked it can cause complications.

Answer 4

Who can definitively say if a cow is "suffering"? Farmers take good care of their animals and make sure that they are healthy, fed, allowed to roam and be outside.

An animal must be self aware, such as humans are, to even know if there is suffering involved.

When your mother was breast feeding you, did you feel that she was suffering?

Ask her.

Answer 5

cows suffering a lot than we are,so we should take repsonsibility to do something meaningful,not just sacrificing their life.
cows knows they can do nothing but to provide service for us.

the greater ability, the greater responsibility.

Answer 6

life is brutal. we have distant ourself from the curl reality of living. It is a violent word

Answer 7

Dairy cows will provide milk, doesn't matter if they are preggies or not.

Answer 8

yes

go to peta they have a video you can watch

or search the meatrix

Answer 9

http://www.viva.org.uk/goingvegan/index.html

http://www.viva.org.uk/guides/murdershewrote.htm#MilkyNoWay

not sure if this counts as nonpropaganda but look anywy you might learn something

Answer 10

I do not think they suffer