For industrial farms, yeah I think that calf doesn't have a happy ending.
That said, if you don't want the calf, there's almost always going to be someone that does. We'd raise and then butcher the male calves from our milking cows. (We did milk the cows for commercial purposes).
Thank you. I was a little bit disappointed that these more sinister parts were occluded but I guess that is to be expected after all, the dairy industry spends insane amounts of money to keep us gaslighted. Just ask somebody if cows give milk without being pregnant...
Let's also not forget that the article basically skips what rennet actually is just naming it an enzyme.
I think there's a linguistically-driven temporal misunderstanding happening here. A cow couldn't have a calf if it hadn't become pregnant.
But there's so much to the linguistics of animal husbandry and dairy that many folks don't know. It goes way deeper than just the milk-oriented terms in the article: Heifer versus cow, freshening and calving, steer versus ox versus bull, AI (not the LLM kind) versus natural service, the barn, parlor, and pasture, and more. Plus plenty of technical knowledge. If you're not hand milking, how many mmHg of negative pressure should you use? Do you use a surcingle, or a claw, or a robot?
Even in the milk-oriented terms, there are others not covered by the article. HTST and UHT aren't the only options, there's also LTLT. Pasteurization can be done in a pipeline, or in a vat. Smaller vats for home and small farm usage can be multi-purpose: I pasteurized milk and cultured yogurt in mine. Some folks even care about the specific proteins (A1 beta-casein versus A2), which is genetically determined by the cow (and can be bred for).
I’m curious curious, what’s the English term for a female calf that lived more that two years and didn’t experience pregnancy? Never heard such a term in any language.
I don't think people are kept abreast of the realities of animal farming in general.
Cows simply produce milk like chickens lay eggs.
Consider how imagery of a farmer inseminating a cow with his arm disappearing up some tract or fitting a spike to the baby so it can't drink its mom's milk -- or farm conditions in general -- are basically shock footage that people are insulated from until they maybe chance upon a movie like Dominion.
I didn't want to put a spiked nose ring on the first calf born on my small farm because of the visual shock. Its mother didn't kick the calf off as it grew up. The calf wouldn't stop nursing, kept the cow in milk for far too long, and I believe eventually caused her death.
These are not sapient beings that are capable of looking out for their own well-being. We've bred that out of them over hundreds of human generations.
The gestation period of a cow is approximately 9 months, similar to humans, by coincidence. Only a cow that has given birth to a calf will produce milk. The normal lactation period is 305 days before the cow is "dried up" before giving birth again. 10,000 pounds of milk is considered a good lactation total. Typically, cows are bred to calve once per year. Typically going through 10 lactations before that one way trip to MacDonald's.
Dairy bulls are notoriously nasty creatures, so artificial insemination is almost universal in the dairy industry. The "tract" that you speak of is the cow's colon. The technician is careful to guide the pipette so as not to injure the animal, and the colon provides convenient access to feel what is going on inside.
If you are squeamish about such things as cow's colons, then vet school is not for you.
I was speaking from the perspective of the people in my opening sentence. How commonly known would you suspect those facts are in your comment?
e.g. "[They might assume] cows simply produce milk like chickens lay eggs."
It's normal to never really think about it -- our society is set up so that you never have to. The secretion comes in a jug, the meat comes in cellophane, and that's it.
A cow must have been pregnant to produce milk. So it's artificially inseminated and the calf separated (so as not to steal valuable milk) which is arguably traumatic to both the mother and the calf. Most modern people, if they've ever even thought about it at all, likely think that cows are bred to (or naturally do) produce milk without pregnancy being involved, like sheep are bred to grow wool around the year.
> Most people think that cows are simply bred to produce milk without pregnancy
Am I misinterpreting you here? You're saying most people think cows are bred (you know, what causes pregnancy), and presumably think that that calves are born — I've never met anyone who didn't know what a calf is, but somehow don't realize that pregnancy happens inbetween?
Yes, you're misinterpreting me. Breeding involves making calves, obviously. But once you get the hypothetical continuously-milk-producing cows, they don't have to make calves. Making more cows can be delegated to cows specialized to making more cows, so cows producing milk for humans can do that without inconvenient pregnancies.
But that's not how it works. Every single milk-producing cow must have been pregnant at least once, and typically several times in its life to keep producing desired amounts of milk. And the calves are an unwanted byproduct that must be taken away. At least they're not shredded in a big blender like the male chicks of egg-laying chicken breeds are.
Where else are you going to get them from? A calf factory?
> And the calves are an unwanted byproduct
Am I misinterpreting you again? Heifer calves are the prized possession that ensures that your dairy continues into the future. Cows don't last forever (or even all that long).
You maybe had a stronger case for bull calves, but now that modern breeding can select for heifers with ~90% confidence, that's hardly an issue anymore. And, I mean, in this day of age of high-priced beef, even if you get the occasional bull you're not exactly complaining either.
> modern breeding can select for heifers with ~90% confidence
May you expend on this? I know we kinda have selection techniques for eggs to crush them before hatch but I guess that’s not what’s happening with milk caws as the diary is the main target and the cow need to give birth to start lactation. Or perhaps it’s the impregnating technique or some hormone therapy that tricks the odds?
> in this day of age of high-priced beef, even if you get the occasional bull you're not exactly complaining either.
I depends on the breed: in this days of high volume diary and meat consumption, most of what people eat comes from specialised breeds that hare very good at producing milk OR muscle. The non-desired sexed are not so valuable. Switzerland (and others countries I can’t remembers) recently passed a calves handling low to require farmers caring them for a minimum days in response to industrial sloped into unethical territories.
That documentary shows another practice in India : some invaluable calve are just roped to a fence and forget until dehydration. https://christspiracy.com
As I said, I doubt most people think about this at all. But if they do, I find it an entirely reasonable assumption that, as I said, if cows could make milk without making calves, in modern industrial farming the calves would be made by individuals that only make calves, and milk would be made by individuals that only make milk, for efficiency reasons. That's what I would assume, probably.
> One could argue there's more suffering in a glass of milk than a steak
What I find quite bizarre that in India (where I am from) milk is considered ethically vegetarian whereas unfertilized chicken eggs are not.
But the weirdest experience I have ever had was at the main Google cafeteria. One gentleman with a steak on his fresh plate was quizzing the attendant at length to be sure that the mashed potato was vegan. After many months of thinking I found a plausible reason.
I know a number of people who have allergies to some animal products (notably eggs or dairy). Given the growing familiarity with (and catering to) vegan diets, they find it much easier to use "is it vegan" as a shortcut to "can I eat this" rather than interrogate food workers about specific ingredients.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
— Carl Sagan
e.g. to get the cow to make milk you have to get it pregnant and thus you get an unwanted calf.
For industrial farms, yeah I think that calf doesn't have a happy ending.
That said, if you don't want the calf, there's almost always going to be someone that does. We'd raise and then butcher the male calves from our milking cows. (We did milk the cows for commercial purposes).
Thank you. I was a little bit disappointed that these more sinister parts were occluded but I guess that is to be expected after all, the dairy industry spends insane amounts of money to keep us gaslighted. Just ask somebody if cows give milk without being pregnant...
Let's also not forget that the article basically skips what rennet actually is just naming it an enzyme.
> Just ask somebody if cows give milk without being pregnant
Is that... controversial? Obviously a cow normally gives milk without being pregnant. It wouldn't be able to feed its calf otherwise.
I think there's a linguistically-driven temporal misunderstanding happening here. A cow couldn't have a calf if it hadn't become pregnant.
But there's so much to the linguistics of animal husbandry and dairy that many folks don't know. It goes way deeper than just the milk-oriented terms in the article: Heifer versus cow, freshening and calving, steer versus ox versus bull, AI (not the LLM kind) versus natural service, the barn, parlor, and pasture, and more. Plus plenty of technical knowledge. If you're not hand milking, how many mmHg of negative pressure should you use? Do you use a surcingle, or a claw, or a robot?
Even in the milk-oriented terms, there are others not covered by the article. HTST and UHT aren't the only options, there's also LTLT. Pasteurization can be done in a pipeline, or in a vat. Smaller vats for home and small farm usage can be multi-purpose: I pasteurized milk and cultured yogurt in mine. Some folks even care about the specific proteins (A1 beta-casein versus A2), which is genetically determined by the cow (and can be bred for).
I got a cow in 2020 and there was a lot to learn.
> A cow couldn't have a calf if it hadn't become pregnant.
Not just that. A cow couldn't be a cow if she hadn't become pregnant.
I’m curious curious, what’s the English term for a female calf that lived more that two years and didn’t experience pregnancy? Never heard such a term in any language.
I don't think people are kept abreast of the realities of animal farming in general.
Cows simply produce milk like chickens lay eggs.
Consider how imagery of a farmer inseminating a cow with his arm disappearing up some tract or fitting a spike to the baby so it can't drink its mom's milk -- or farm conditions in general -- are basically shock footage that people are insulated from until they maybe chance upon a movie like Dominion.
I didn't want to put a spiked nose ring on the first calf born on my small farm because of the visual shock. Its mother didn't kick the calf off as it grew up. The calf wouldn't stop nursing, kept the cow in milk for far too long, and I believe eventually caused her death.
These are not sapient beings that are capable of looking out for their own well-being. We've bred that out of them over hundreds of human generations.
? No, you need to educate yourself.
The gestation period of a cow is approximately 9 months, similar to humans, by coincidence. Only a cow that has given birth to a calf will produce milk. The normal lactation period is 305 days before the cow is "dried up" before giving birth again. 10,000 pounds of milk is considered a good lactation total. Typically, cows are bred to calve once per year. Typically going through 10 lactations before that one way trip to MacDonald's.
Dairy bulls are notoriously nasty creatures, so artificial insemination is almost universal in the dairy industry. The "tract" that you speak of is the cow's colon. The technician is careful to guide the pipette so as not to injure the animal, and the colon provides convenient access to feel what is going on inside.
If you are squeamish about such things as cow's colons, then vet school is not for you.
I was speaking from the perspective of the people in my opening sentence. How commonly known would you suspect those facts are in your comment?
e.g. "[They might assume] cows simply produce milk like chickens lay eggs."
It's normal to never really think about it -- our society is set up so that you never have to. The secretion comes in a jug, the meat comes in cellophane, and that's it.
A cow must have been pregnant to produce milk. So it's artificially inseminated and the calf separated (so as not to steal valuable milk) which is arguably traumatic to both the mother and the calf. Most modern people, if they've ever even thought about it at all, likely think that cows are bred to (or naturally do) produce milk without pregnancy being involved, like sheep are bred to grow wool around the year.
> Most people think that cows are simply bred to produce milk without pregnancy
Am I misinterpreting you here? You're saying most people think cows are bred (you know, what causes pregnancy), and presumably think that that calves are born — I've never met anyone who didn't know what a calf is, but somehow don't realize that pregnancy happens inbetween?
Yes, you're misinterpreting me. Breeding involves making calves, obviously. But once you get the hypothetical continuously-milk-producing cows, they don't have to make calves. Making more cows can be delegated to cows specialized to making more cows, so cows producing milk for humans can do that without inconvenient pregnancies.
But that's not how it works. Every single milk-producing cow must have been pregnant at least once, and typically several times in its life to keep producing desired amounts of milk. And the calves are an unwanted byproduct that must be taken away. At least they're not shredded in a big blender like the male chicks of egg-laying chicken breeds are.
> they don't have to make calves.
Where else are you going to get them from? A calf factory?
> And the calves are an unwanted byproduct
Am I misinterpreting you again? Heifer calves are the prized possession that ensures that your dairy continues into the future. Cows don't last forever (or even all that long).
You maybe had a stronger case for bull calves, but now that modern breeding can select for heifers with ~90% confidence, that's hardly an issue anymore. And, I mean, in this day of age of high-priced beef, even if you get the occasional bull you're not exactly complaining either.
> modern breeding can select for heifers with ~90% confidence
May you expend on this? I know we kinda have selection techniques for eggs to crush them before hatch but I guess that’s not what’s happening with milk caws as the diary is the main target and the cow need to give birth to start lactation. Or perhaps it’s the impregnating technique or some hormone therapy that tricks the odds?
> in this day of age of high-priced beef, even if you get the occasional bull you're not exactly complaining either.
I depends on the breed: in this days of high volume diary and meat consumption, most of what people eat comes from specialised breeds that hare very good at producing milk OR muscle. The non-desired sexed are not so valuable. Switzerland (and others countries I can’t remembers) recently passed a calves handling low to require farmers caring them for a minimum days in response to industrial sloped into unethical territories.
That documentary shows another practice in India : some invaluable calve are just roped to a fence and forget until dehydration. https://christspiracy.com
As I said, I doubt most people think about this at all. But if they do, I find it an entirely reasonable assumption that, as I said, if cows could make milk without making calves, in modern industrial farming the calves would be made by individuals that only make calves, and milk would be made by individuals that only make milk, for efficiency reasons. That's what I would assume, probably.
They didn't say during pregnancy. Cows only produce milk after giving birth to a calf, so they're regularly inseminated.
I think a lot of people don't realize we're hijacking their reproductive systems, instead assuming cows constantly produce milk.
One could argue there's more suffering in a glass of milk than a steak, which makes ethical vegetarianism flawed despite its good intentions.
> One could argue there's more suffering in a glass of milk than a steak
What I find quite bizarre that in India (where I am from) milk is considered ethically vegetarian whereas unfertilized chicken eggs are not.
But the weirdest experience I have ever had was at the main Google cafeteria. One gentleman with a steak on his fresh plate was quizzing the attendant at length to be sure that the mashed potato was vegan. After many months of thinking I found a plausible reason.
I know a number of people who have allergies to some animal products (notably eggs or dairy). Given the growing familiarity with (and catering to) vegan diets, they find it much easier to use "is it vegan" as a shortcut to "can I eat this" rather than interrogate food workers about specific ingredients.
We both must be close to the truth which we will never know. My guess was that he was lactose intolerant.