Earlier today, I put a link on my Facebook page to the undercover video, posted by Mercy for Animals, of brutality on a dairy farm in Ohio. My post elicited many comments and questions, and it felt important to immediately address them, which I’m doing here so that everyone can read these thoughts. You can view the undercover footage here, if you can’t view the video below:  (PLEASE DO NOT LET CHILDREN SEE THIS FILM.)

Some have wondered how common such cruelty is. While it may not be ubiquitous for individuals to violently brutalize dairy cows and calves to the degree shown in this video, sadly, the dairy industry has institutionalized cruelty embedded into its very structure.

Dairy cows are annually impregnated so that they will bear a calf and thereby produce milk. Like us, if they don’t have a baby, they don’t produce milk. It is normal practice on dairy farms to take the calf away from her mother at one day old. You can only imagine how the cows feel when their young are, essentially, kidnapped from them. Cows will bellow out for days. Normally, a cow will produce about 7 lbs. of milk to feed her young, but on our dairies we have forced them to produce 40-90 pounds of milk per day. For all you mothers out there, just imagine that instead of nursing a single baby, you were forced to produce enough milk to feel ten times that amount. This is why half of the dairy cows in the U.S. end up getting mastitis, a painful udder infection that necessitates antibiotics.

Meanwhile, the male calves – useless to the dairy industry – are routinely raised for veal. If they are not killed immediately, it is normal practice in the specialty-veal industry to chain the calves at the neck in stalls barely bigger than their bodies. They are unable to take more than a single step forward or backward, and they are fed an iron-deficient diet to keep their flesh pale. The reason they are kept under these horrendous conditions is to prevent them from moving and thereby building muscle, thus keeping their flesh tender, which is prized by those who eat veal. I have visited a typical specialty-fed veal farm and have witnessed these conditions for myself. I know many people who won’t eat veal because of the cruelty inherent in the industry, but who don’t realize that veal and dairy are inextricably linked.

Last year, I was talking with some Stonyfield Farms farmers. Because they have such a good reputation as an organic dairy producer, I wanted to know how they treated their cows and calves. I asked whether they had animal welfare guidelines they had to follow to be a Stonyfield producer and whether the calves were taken away from their mothers shortly after birth. Indeed they were, and they told me that there were no specific guidelines for the treatment of the animals. The only guidelines they told me they had to follow revolved around their milk being produced organically. In other words, organic dairy does not mean cruelty-free dairy.

For those of you who want to consume dairy products, I encourage you to visit the dairies to whom you’re giving your business and ask questions.

Mercy for Animals has done tremendous undercover investigations and time and again these investigations reveal rampant cruelty on our farms.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

Thanks so much for taking the time to learn about this and pursue further information.

Filed under: animal protection, compassion, critical thinking, food and diet, speciesism, systemic change, videos Tagged: | animal cruelty, animal welfare, brutality, dairy cows, factory farming, farmed animals, industrial agriculture, institutionalized cruelty, Mercy for Animals, suffering, undercover investigations, video, violence