Is Dairy Farming Cruel to Cows?

Uh-oh, the animal welfare people are out to cause harm to one of my favorite industries. Real dairy milk! This time, to make the milk industry get woke and then got broke, they are now going to argue that a cow's life is cruel.

I think this idea is crazy. I think most cows get the best life possible that is available for their lot in life.

But now I'm worried that so many people are buying into milk alternatives, and the idea that cows are being mistreated, that the dairy milk industry will go out of business/bankrupt. Then I can't get dairy milk anymore??? Dairy milk is one of the great luxuries of my life. If I were to be denied dairy, the universe may as well stop running because I wouldn't get to enjoy milk and all the treats that come from dairy.

 

OK. We get it. You like milk.

But does your love of milk justify possibly inhumane treatment of the cows?
Setting a baseline for treatment of these animals would cause an increase in costs causing retail prices to increase as well.
Remember the "fake meat" thing from a few years back?
Remember Aydes?
It doesn't take much bad press to destroy confidence in the marketplace
By implementing reforms the dairy industry would actually be protecting their markets

 

I have a cow outside who gets the best life possible, though I think she is lonely and could use a friendly cow to help her in her old age.

Factor farming is not the best life possible for really any animal that's forced to go through that.

 

Yes, absolutely!

Our food industry is cruel but without it, millions of people would starve. People take comfort in lessening the cruelty of animals, but I've heard plants cry out when they're stressed or damage. It just happens in a frequency that our ears can't hear. So, you know, can't win.

No, I don't remember any of those.

What reforms? Except for a few bad apples, most farmers care about their herd and will give them a decent life for the cows' lot in life.

Look, everyone has their lot in life to keep civilization running. Both cows and people. You know all those barbers, dentists, etc. that keep the world going? And so do dairy farms.

 

Oh, how nice. You have a cow.

Anyway about industrial farming, it's a cow's lot in life. See my post above to dadoalex.

 

Yeah that's basically an utilitarian argument of "this reduces the total amount of pain because cows aren't treated that badly" argument. More good comes from factory farming than does whatever the other option would be. The thing is, that's wrong on lots of different accounts.

1. Cows do not have the best of all possible lives, meaning that you have to give into hedonistic utilitarianism. Once you do that, that's pretty much game over. Why not torture your kids if you get more pleasure from it? What about the risk of superbugs spreading from livestock who are fed antibiotics before they get sick?
2. Dadolex is saying that the dairy industry needs to stop doing factory farming because it will improve as a whole, a direct refutation of "well I want milk". Why do your needs of getting food outweigh the needs of the dairy industry?
3. I would take that argument a step further and say that factory farms are actually causing lots of political instability by alienating rural populations from jobs on farms. The Green Revolution hasn't been kind to rural communities. Those sentiments are fueling political instability in the form of political violence. How can we support factory farms when they bring about more pain than pleasure?
4. I'm not a utilitarian, so you will have to excuse me if my concerns are about caring for animals. This is clearly not caring for animals in the slightest. They only have value if the market says they have value and I refuse to believe that any living creature deserves to die because it no longer makes them money.

 

Dairy farming is not cruel to animals. There are some dairy farmers who might be cruel to animals. Big difference.

 

Well, until the old gals become hamburger....

 

Are you suggesting that all meat farming is cruel and therefore all meat farming should be illegal??

 

I suppose you could always buy a milking cow and raise her for her milk. They are labor intensive however you'll get all the milk you can drink (you'd most likely want to pasteurize it as well) if your willing to put in time and money required.

 

I didn't say that anything should be illegal now did I?

 

If what you say is true then such actions will only serve to reinforce that truth.

But, to be honest, from what I've seen on some of the larger farms? The questions seem legitimate.

 

How many millions for studying treatment of dairy cows is in the stimulus package?

 

In the far future, possibly in the lifetimes of our children or grandchildren, I strongly believe this will happen. The moral case for killing animals for food when there are alternatives doesn't have much foundation, but does have the current cultural norm.

I think future generations will look back on this sort of thing in same sort of way (though possibly less extreme) that we now look back on when slavery was considered normal and morally accepted.

 

Well, you could always switch to human breast milk.

 

I predict this will happen and that future generations will look at us eating animal meat like we now look back on people who kept slaves. But since I live today with today’s mindset, where’s my hamburger? Yummy.

 

I stopped that when I was weaned.

Besides the milk at the store is processed into modern milk. It has a special consistency.

 

Human milk could be likewised processed. And you could get it from a source that consents.

 

I think it depends how the cows are living and treated on that farm.

I would think, at least theoretically overall, that dairy farming would be less cruel than raising cows to be slaughtered.

However there are many farms that do both. Send the cows to the slaughter facility when they are no longer useful for their milk.
Something about that strikes me as very distasteful, and very likely ethically offensive.

 

I am opposed to the idea that dairy farming is bad, at least fundamentally.
But there is often a difference between theory and practice, and it might well be that most dairy farming (in terms of volume of milk produced) could be bad.

Some states have passed laws requiring all milk to be pasteurized, which has not been good for the smaller specialty farms that are more likely to treat their cows well.

 

Generally the cheaper the milk, the more corners were cut. Organic grass-fed dairy all the way!

 

Location of where you're buying the milk is important also.

"Because of the continuous pregnancies and excessive milking, many dairy cows suffer from mastitis. As well as being painful for the cows this means there is blood and pus in their milk. In the US the FDA allows 750 million pus cells in every litre of milk. In Europe, regulators allow 400 million pus cells per litre."

https://www.alv.org.au/cow-truth/17...nuous pregnancies,million pus cells per litre.

 

I doubt we will have elimination, but reduction make sense. The trouble is that eating meat is connected with wealth and success.

 

Maybe the government should start a consumer certification program, so consumers can know that the cows where their meat and milk came from were treated well, and held up to certain standards.
We could punish those who do not comply by requiring their products include a disclaimer suggesting that the cows may not have been treated well.

How many consumers would buy milk if there was a big red label on it that said "The cows where this milk came from may have been raised in abusive conditions".

 

It is far crueler than a cow being mauled and eaten by a pack of wolves or coyotes.