does it hurt the cow when it gets milked? How about a chicken when it lays an egg?

Question

im asking this also because i want to know why people are vegans.
(besides the fact that its healthy)

i understand vegitarianism- actually killing the animal

but what about vegans- just eating foods FROM animals

Answer 1

If the cow is being milked correctly, it doesn't hurt at all. They will not stand still if it hurts or done incorrectly. I'm not sure about the chicken.

Answer 2

It's not a matter of the pain of a natural process (a mother cow feeding her calf or a chicken passing an egg as a part of her menstrual cycle) that is the problem. The problem in large part comes from the conditions of factory farms. The dairy cows responsible for the milk in your local grocery store are kept pregnant constantly in order to keep them lactating. Think about it--in a human, a mother quits giving milk once her child is old enough not to need it any more. Cows are naturally the same way. So the milk factories need to keep the cows pregnant in order to keep the milk flowing. Once the cow gives birth, if the calf is a female it becomes a dairy cow. If it is a male, it is sent off to be veal. And the process continues. Once the cow is worn out, and can't give milk any longer, it is sold to be slaughtered for hamburger and other low grade meats.

As for chickens eggs, the conditions are equally awful. They are kept in small cages with 4 other birds, not even able to lift a wing. When they stop laying eggs, they are starved for up to two weeks to induce another laying cycle. Meanwhile, their beaks are chopped off with a hot knife so they don't hurt eachother while they are crammed into their cages. In order to keep the factory running, some chickens are impregnated. When their babies hatch at the hatchery, the females are sent to a life of egg producing, while the males are thrown in a grinder while still alive, or are just thrown away. At the end of the chicken's life, she is ultimate sent to slaughter and treated to the same inhumane slaughter practices as the hens raised for food.

Answer 3

I used to feel that way too. Unfortunately, it turns out there's a lot of cruelty and suffering in the egg and dairy industries.

Egg-laying hens are some of the most abused creatures on the planet. They are confined in barrren, wire cages so small that they can't even spread their wings. Once they stop producing eggs (about 2 years) they're slaughtered. Male chicks are useless to the egg industry (because they don't produce eggs) so the chicks are suffocated in trash bags or ground up alive. See:
http://goveg.com/factoryFarming_chickens_egg.asp
http://mercyforanimals.org/eggs.asp

Dairy cows are slaughtered after about 4 to 5 years, when they stop producing milk. (The natural lifespan of a cow is about 25 years). Since male calves don't produce milk and are useless to the dairy industry, they are turned into veal. More info: http://goveg.com/factoryFarming_Cows_Dairy.asp

So the animals may be alive when we get their milk and eggs, but they're not treated well and they're slaughtered as soon as they stop producing these products.

Answer 4

Yes it does hurt them, mainly because of the conditions they're kept in. Most egg laying hens are kept by the thousands, will not get to see the light of day and are kept in filthy warehouses. The tips of their beaks are chopped off so they don't injure eachother from the stress of being kept like this. There is also the fact that male chicks are useless to the egg industry so are killed at birth, so for every female egg-laying chicken born, a male chick has been killed because it can't be put to good 'use'. The female hens are also killed for their meat once their egg production dwindles... so by supporting the egg industry you're supporting the suffering and eventual death of a hen.

As for milk... as is often said, dairy cows are the hardest worked animals on the farm. Cows only produce milk when they have young to feed. Naturally cows would bear young once every 2-4 years but this just isn't profitable enough to farmers so they are impregnated every year and then when a calf is born, it will be taken away from it's mother so it doesn't drink the milk which is rightfully theirs but sold to humans instead. To make her even more profitable the cow will be impregnated as soon as possible so she has the double burden of producing milk and nurturing a calf inside her at the same time. This causes extreme stress on the legs which is why 50% of cows become lame from the stress put on their legs. Also, cows have been bred and manipulated over the years and now they produce ridiculous amounts of milk... the reason why 1 in 3 cows will develop mastitis. If she gives birth to a female then the calf will have much the same life as her mother... un uncomfortable existence, having her calfs taken away from her year after year until she's finally 'spent' and killed for her meat just a quarter of the way through her natural life. Male calfs are either killed at birth or sent to the veal market in europe to be slaghtered for their meat.

I actually think the egg and dairy industry are worse than the meat industry... they just prolong an animal's suffering to make use of their bodies before killing them anyway.

While you may just see a glass of milk or an egg and think it hasn't hurt the animal, vegans see these things and think of the suffering involved to produce them. I don't think we should use animals for our own benefit... they're living beings and not just machines for us humans to take advantage of.

Answer 5

It's not the milking per se that hurts. It's the constant pregnancies, the hormones, the antibiotics, the constant milking by a machine, the mastitis, the loss of her babies--who are taken away within hours of birth--the fact that the daughters are destined to become dairy cows like mom and the sons are destined for the veal crates, and the slaughter when production declines well before their normal lifespan. Remember, cows' milk is a perfect food only if you're a baby calf.

And I don't know if it hurts a chicken when she lays an egg, but I do know that she is crammed in a cage with five to seven other hens, unable to move; that baby male layer chicks are killed at birth, usually by being tossed in a garbage can to suffocate. Baby male layer chicks, you see, do not lay eggs, of course, and do not grow quickly enough to be profitable as meat. And she, too, is killed when production declines, well short of her normal lifespan.

So, yeah, you could say milk and eggs hurt.

Answer 6

When the cow has been trucked through freezing conditions without food and water, been kept constantly pregnant for her whole life, has her baby ripped away from her a day after its born, and is hooked to a milk machine, yes, it hurts her.

Searing chickens beaks off with a dull blade, cramming them in wire cages so tight that they cannot stretch out one wing, injecting them with hormones so that they're too big to even stand, and starving them to shock their bodies into extra laying cycels is painful, not to mention when the male chicks are boiled alive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIjanhKqVC4

The objection is not merely to animal SLAUGHTER but to animal TORTURE, and one cannot call modern factory farming practices anything BUT torture.

Answer 7

no it doesnt hurt the cow, infact not milking a cow causes it pain


yes it hurts the chicken when it lays an egg think about the size of the egg then think about the size of a chicken thats why the squwak whent hey lay an egg


now the reason vegans dont eat either is because the egg is an undeveloped chicken so sorta like eating the flesh and the milk is intended for cows, not for humans

Answer 8

Nope the milking itself doesnt hurt the cow in general. the automated suction machines mimic calves. If you did hurt it, it will let you know with a quick kick. But then again, here are issues about how the milk cows are treated. Chickens are hurt the way humans a re hurt during their "periods". Chickens laying unfertilized chicken eggs are similar to human going through menstrual cycles. But they go through that with or wothout human intervention.

Answer 9

The cows will ache if they're not milked (just like people), and chickens lay eggs no matter what, so we might as well eat them. It doesn't hurt a chicken to lay eggs.

Answer 10

Milk is breast milk for calves.

Eggs are for chickens.

And when they're both spent, they're sent to slaughter anyway, just like their meat-only cousins. Consuming dairy & eggs just prolongs the cruelty, and it all ends the same way. Not to mention dairy supports veal.

Answer 11

it does hurt when cows get milked cos after they get milked they can barely walk and there forced to have babies so they can keep giving milk and the babies get seperated from the moms

the chickens get there beaks burned off and there kept in small cages that doesn't have any spaces to spread there wings and also they are stuck with other chicken in that small cage o yea and when they don't lay anymore eggs they get hung upsidedown from there legs and they slit there throat but i think they do that to all animals

thats why vegans go vegan