The Ter-moo-nators (Cows in Action)

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For the remainder of the year, most cows are confined in small sheds with no access to the outdoors. Here, these social and intelligent animals are not able to fulfil their needs and express their natural behaviours, causing them great distress.

Cows in Action Series by Steve Cole - Goodreads

Some of the most common health problems that cows develop are metabolic starvation, mastitis and lameness.

Once she gives birth, she starts producing milk for her newborn calf – milk that her baby would naturally drink during the first 10 months of his or her life. In 1975, a cow used for her milk produced around 4,100 litres of milk per year. Today a cow will produce double that amount: 8,200 litres of milk per year, which is an average of 22 litres per day. Around 2.6 million cows are used for their milk every year in the UK and a growing number of them have never stepped foot on grass and will never see a pasture.

Cows in Action 3: The Roman Moo-stery (Cows In Action, 9)

The dairy industry even admits that this practise is extremely problematic, calling it an ‘own goal’: However, while the shooting on-farm may have been banned by the majority of retailers and dairy producers, the fate of these innocent animals has not changed as they are still being killed. Not only that, but the dairy industry is pushing our planet to its limits. Like all animal agriculture, it is a driving force behind species extinction, deforestation, water scarcity, land overuse and global antibiotic resistance. Producing a glass of dairy milk every day for a year needs land as large as the size of two tennis courts - that’s ten times the land needed for oat milk. In a zero-graze system, a cow is not allowed to graze or be outdoors on the grass. Instead, she is fed silage (wet, fermented grass) and a high concentrate mix of cereal, soya, sunflower meal and maize.Just like humans, cows only produce milk for their babies. For this reason, once a cow is around 15 months of age, she is artificially impregnated – for the first time. The process of artificial insemination is distressing, as she is forced into a confined space where a farmer inserts an inseminating gun in her vagina to deposit sperm. While doing this, the farmer inserts one arm in the cow’s anus to manually manipulate her reproductive organs. Cows in the dairy industry are bred specifically to produce far larger quantities of milk than they would ever produce naturally. This unnatural milk production, combined with repeated forced pregnancies, takes a toll on their bodies. By the time they are a few years old, they are seen as ‘unproductive’ – because they’re so exhausted and their milk production has declined – and no longer profitable to the industry.

Why is The Dairy Industry Cruel? | Animal Equality UK

And some don’t even get six months outside. Because the industry is constantly looking for ways to increase profits, a new system – referred to as ‘zero-graze’ – has been introduced in the UK and it is being used more and more frequently. We should be able to trust the Government to use our taxpayer money wisely, but as a conscious consumer I am concerned that the Government is choosing to support an industry that is responsible for damaging our planet and taking mothers from their babies.However, in dairy farms – whether small-scale, certified organic or intensive – the milk she produces will not be given to her baby, as it will instead be bottled up for human consumption. And so, her calf is separated from her and swapped for a milking machine which is attached to her teats. Animals trapped in factory farms are being silenced, but you can lend your voice to speak up for them. Please help by sharing this petition with at least three people who also care about animals. Shooting bull calves is potentially a massive own goal when we are talking about showing how great our industry is National Farmers (NFU) Union dairy chairman Michael Oakes (Jan, 2020)