The Myth about “Happy” Cows

And the Cow Goes Noooo

Dairy Cows

Veal Calves

Beef Cattle

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Definitions

The Cattle are Lowing

Cattle, domesticated centuries ago, arrived in the United States in the late 1500s. They are intelligent, sensitive, and curious animals whose hearing is far better than humans and sense of smell can detect odors up to six miles away. They are also known to have great memories: they can find their way home after being transported to another location, and they can recognize more than 100 members of their herd.

When given the chance to live a healthy, normal lifespan of 25 years or more, cattle will form family units usually with one bull (intact male), several cows (females who have had at least one calf), and their calves (infant males and females). Their diet consists of a wide variety of plant life.

Cattle are social animals with distinct personalities and generally interact with their peers in complex ways. They have best friends and form cliques with a set hierarchy. The leader of a herd is usually the most intelligent and experienced of the group. Relationships, especially between sisters and mothers and their female offspring, are particularly close.

Cattle engage in mutual grooming and lick one another to show they care about their friends; the more bonded they are, they more they lick each other. Along with forming friendships, they also can hold grudges against both herd members and humans who hurt them.

And the Cow Goes Noooo                                                                      Back To Top

Suzie was about to be loaded on a freighter when she turned around, ran down the gangplank, and jumped into a river. She eluded capture for several days before she was rescued and sent to a sanctuary for farmed animals. Emily, heading toward a slaughterhouse, jumped a 5-foot gate and escaped into a wooded area. She was rescued by owners of a sanctuary where she now resides.

When we think of cattle, we often conjure up the picture of these huge animals grazing in a green field, with their offspring nearby frolicking in the sun and fresh air—the image of the “happy” cow. Today’s cattle are far from contented and this image is ever-becoming simply a myth. In fact, most of the cattle raised today for either slaughter or dairy products live a life of deprivation and disease.

Dairy Cows                                                                                              Back To Top

Five million dairy cows live in intensified factory farming operations. To maintain a steady supply of milk, these cows are forced to give birth every year for about three to four years until they are no longer able to produce enough milk to make them financially justifiable to the dairy industry. They are then sent to slaughter. Their offspring become part of either the dairy industry if female or the veal industry if male. Regardless of the direction these calves take, they are taken from their mothers immediately following birth.

Dairy cows are kept in indoor facilities where they are fed and watered. They do not go outside and graze or spend time in the sun. Their urine and feces are removed mechanically. Their milk is removed by machines hooked up to their udders. Their tails are docked to make access to their udders easier for the person hooking up the machines. Research shows that this surgery, done without the use of anesthesia, is painful and causes chronic pain for many animals.

Through modern technology and genetic manipulation, today’s cow can produce as much as 100 pounds or about 12 gallons of milk a day. In the natural world, a cow would produce about 10 pounds or 1 gallon of milk a day—milk for her offspring and no one else. Humans are the only species that drink the milk of another species and continue to drink it beyond the age of weaning.

Cows are injected with a genetically engineered hormone called recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), which causes them to produce more milk. As a result of this intensive increase in production, cows’ immune systems are stressed. They often suffer from mastitis, a painful condition of the udder caused by bacteria, and milk fever, a calcium deficiency brought about by intense milking.

To keep these animals alive and producing more milk, they are given antibiotics and other drugs. These drugs find their way into the finished product. As long as drug residues are at “safe” levels, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows the milk to be sold. There are no FDA requirements to label milk coming from BGH injected cows. Milk producers in Canada and the European Union (EU) are not allowed to use BGH.

Veal Calves                                                                                             Back To Top

The veal industry was created out of the dairy industry. There is no use for a male calf in a dairy herd. Not wanting to lose money on these animals, dairy farmers created the veal industry. Male calves are taken from their mothers at birth and placed in veal crates, typically no bigger than 22" wide and 58" long, where they spend their entire lives, lying in their own urine and feces and chained to the bars of the crate. At approximately 18 to 20 weeks, they are slaughtered.

To keep their much prized tender meat white, the calves are fed a milk substitute deficient in iron. This unnatural diet causes chronic diarrhea in many calves. The calves are never allowed outdoors or even to stand, move around, lie down in a normal position, or stretch out in their crates. They are kept in near or total darkness to keep them quiet. Any movement would cause their flesh to form muscle mass and that would lower the value of the final product. Because they are living in such confined quarters and eating an unnatural diet, they often suffer from respiratory and intestinal diseases.  

To counter the effects of this unnatural life, calves are given a wide variety of antibiotics and other chemicals, which often are still in their system at the time of slaughter. Drugs such as penicillin, tetracycline, sulfa drugs, and clenbuterol have all been found in meat destined for the family dinner table.

Beef Cattle                                                                                              Back To Top

Approximately 41 million beef cattle are slaughtered in the United States each year. Cattle raised for beef usually start their lives in a more normal fashion than those raised for the dairy and veal industries. They do live on open range land where they eat a more traditional diet. However, they are not provided adequate protection from weather extremes or veterinary care if they become diseased or injured.

As in the days of the “Wild West,” they are branded with hot irons to show ownership. Freeze branding, another technique to identify cattle, involves the use of super cold or chilled irons.They have their ears pierced with identification tags, and males have their testicles cut off. Each of these actions is taken without the use of anesthesia. Some cattle may have their horns gouged out (de-horning) and others will have a notch taken out of their necks (waddling). All of these procedures are done without the use of anesthesia. Life on the range ends at about one year of age when the cattle are shipped to feed lots also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), where they are fed a diet of mainly corn.

Intense confinement of cattle on feedlots increases the need for injecting them with antibiotics and hormones to keep them healthy and get them to slaughter weight. The EU has banned the use of hormones and therefore has banned importation of American beef products using hormones.

Raising beef cattle is detrimental to the environment. To produce a pound of steak, factory farmers use 2,500 gallons of water and a gallon of gasoline and destroy 35 pounds of topsoil due to erosion. In tropical countries, forests are leveled to clear land for grazing beef cattle. This newly cleared land often cannot absorb water easily thereby increasing runoff and erosion. The loss of the tropical forests is directly linked to global warming and the loss of habitat for many species of birds, insects, and animals.

Beef cattle by-products—for instance, hides, horns, hoofs, intestines, brains— are used in a variety of products including hair care, clothing, marshmallows, ice cream, gelatin, cement, chalk, chewing gum, makeup, matches, margarine, pet food, and strings for musical instruments and tennis racquets. In 2001, artificial human blood was created from cattle blood.

Mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE) is transmitted when rendered body parts of diseased cattle are fed to other cattle. The human form of the disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, occurs when humans consume meat from undiagnosed, infected cattle.

Take Action to Help Cattle                                                                      Back To Top

What can we do to change what is happening to cattle? First, we can choose to stop eating these living, breathing, sentient animals. Selecting a vegetarian diet is the best way to eliminate the number of cattle being raised for slaughter or for their products on factory farms. Other humane actions include:

• Substitute veggie- and soy-based products for beef, hamburgers, and cows’ milk
• Substitute synthetic materials for leather
• Find a vegetarian group in your area and attend a meeting
• Visit a farm sanctuary and get to know the sentient creatures that cattle truly are
• Learn more about factory farming and educate others
• Support legislation to require stricter regulation and enforcement of animal farming welfare and treatment laws

Updated November 2009

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Definitions of Terms

Anemic conditioning – deprivation of iron in foods given to veal calves. Anemic conditioning prevents the calves from developing tough, red muscles—an attribute undesirable in veal meats. Many calves will lick any exposed metals they can find in their crate area in an attempt to acquire iron minerals.

Beef cattle – raised for beef foods.

Bovine growth hormone (BGH) – a synthetic hormone given to beef cattle to cause them to grow larger, more quickly and to dairy cows to cause them to produce more milk.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, (BSE) – also known as “mad cow disease,” it has been linked to the fatal human disease Cruetzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Branding – a century-old custom of burning the rancher’s mark into the cattle’s flank. A hot iron is placed against the skin without the use of anesthesia. A modern equivalent is freeze branding where a super cold or chilled iron is placed against the skin, causing pigment cells to be altered. When hair grows back, it is white.

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) – also referred to as feedlots and stockyards, CAFOs are giant, zero-grazing lots where beef cattle are raised until slaughter. Overcrowding, unsanitary grounds, and substandard feed contribute to health problems and downer cattle.

Dairy cows – female cows impregnated year-round to sustain milk production. Most dairy cows are intensively confined to zero-grazing farm environments, endure many painful health problems related to unnaturally high milk-production, and are slaughtered once they no longer produce enough milk.

De-horning – the process of removing or stopping the growth of horns on livestock. Also called disbudding, the horns are removed to protect the animals from each other and to protect the humans working with them. This surgery is often done without anesthesia.

Downers or downed animals – incapacitated animals who are often dragged and shoveled to the slaughter line. Many animals arrive at slaughter facilities sick and injured as a result of inhumane factory farming conditions.

Male calves – raised for veal. Male calves are typically torn from their mothers within 24 hours of birth and live the entirety of their short lives in crates and dark barns.

Mastitis – a painful condition that develops on the udders of dairy cows as a result of constant milking under stressful and unsanitary conditions.

Milk fever – a deficiency of calcium caused when milk secretions deplete calcium faster than it can be replenished in the blood. 

Tail-docking – a mutilation to cattle in which the animal’s tail is painfully cut off near the base without the use of anesthesia or other pain killers.

Veal calves – male offspring of dairy cows.

Veal crates – crates in which male calves are chained and kept nearly immobile for up to six months in darkness for the purpose of veal meat production. The young calves are typically torn from their mothers within 24 hours of birth and shipped to veal farms. This industry practice makes separating mother and baby “easier” because it prevents strong bonding. Also, it allows for the diary cow to be re-impregnated quickly, so that she can be milked year-round.

Waddling – a painful procedure that entails cutting chunks out of the hide that hangs under an animal’s neck. The marks have to be large enough for ranchers to identify their cattle from a distance. This procedure is done without anesthesia.

Zero-grazing systems – farming systems that disallow animals their instinctual desire to forage and graze. Animals are fed pre-mixed feeds and “mush,” often containing antibiotics, growth hormones, and fillers. CAFOs, feedlots, stockyards, sheds, cages, and crates all fall under this category.

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