The dairy cow

1476: 

Humans will manipulate anything to gain personal advantage.  We exploit resources to strengthen and protect ourselves, and especially when there’s no danger in it for us (like using captive animals).  Our advantage-taking inspires systems like slavery, so that our lives are made easier.  The 'developed' nations have exploited the weaker nations, bleeding them dry and then spitting them out.  We do the same with weaker species.  Much of our food and clothing is taken from animals.  We keep them 'on tap'.  We put them to work for us because we can, because there are no negative repercussions.  (Or so we think!)

         

Take the dairy cow for instance.  She is the victim of theft and assault on a daily basis.  Her fate is in the hands of humans who want to get 20-40 litres of milk from her every day.  The new-born calf is pushed aside so that we can get its milk.  We’ve always stolen it for ourselves and now we hardly notice it, and we see no reason to stop it.

         

On the farm, the calf is dispatched as quickly as possible, having served its chief purpose in embryo.  As a foetus, it has stimulated its mother’s mammary glands so that when milked she'll provide large quantities of milk.  As for the new born calf, there’s often little point keeping it alive, so they are shot on day one.  One or two female calves (of the five or six born to a cow) are sent to ‘calf prison’, until they’re ready for dairy duties, or for fattening purposes.

         

It’s a sad thought that we abuse such a peaceful creature.  Anthropomorphically, we can guess that both cow and calf are unhappy about their treatment.  But the whole thing is still legal, so there’s not much anyone can do about it.  The milk is drunk, the profits made and the cow remains a slave.

         

Most people have never even thought about this.  If they have, they’ve chosen to ignore it. Humans have been nicely brainwashed.  Our desensitisation has reached the point where considering ‘the rights and wrongs of dairy farming’ has never entered our heads.  And that's convenient for consumer and producer, since there are so many food products on the market made from milk, or which use as an ingredient.