The dairy industry wants you to believe that their farms consist
of happy cows grazing in open green pastures. But this couldn’t be further from
the truth.
Life for a cow at a dairy farm is grim and filled with
sadness and torture. It all starts when mother cows are forcibly impregnated, a
highly invasive and stressful procedure. After carrying their babies for nine
months—just like humans—they give birth.
This is when the real
tragedy begins.
Newborn calves are typically taken from their mothers within
just hours of birth. This forced separation from their calves causes the
mothers to bellow for days; they even pace and search in vain for their stolen
babies.
This heartbreak happens at every dairy farm. In 2013 locals
in Newbury, Massachusetts, called the police because of the crying
they heard from a nearby dairy farm. Upon investigation, authorities
discovered that the cries had come from mourning mothers whose newborns had
been ripped away from them. In Ireland, a cow was found stranded on a small island
in the middle of a lake months after she swam away from a countryside farm. She
was spotted after she’d cleared the island of vegetation. She didn’t swim back
to the mainland because she had given birth and didn’t
want to leave her baby behind.
The bond between mother and calf is very strong. Just imagine
the anguish and stress cows endure—giving birth over and over again only to
have their babies torn away.
And as if the mother’s grief weren’t terrible enough, what
awaits the calf is equally grim. Male calves are isolated and tethered inside
small crates until they are killed for veal, and females are raised to produce
milk, suffering the same trauma as their mothers. The cycle of abuse for
females lasts about five years until they are considered “spent and sent to
slaughter.
See for yourself.
Luckily, consumers can withdraw their financial support from
the cruel factory farming industry by adopting a compassionate vegan diet.
Click here to get started.