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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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The fun part about that is, if you just let the calves they birthed drink the milk, nothing happens to the mother!
Just a quick reminder in case anyone didn’t know: no such thing as a dairy cow. Mammals typically lactate after giving birth. Doesn’t matter if it’s a cow or a human. If you intervene in the calf (or baby) in order to harvest the milk, there can be complications if not milked regularly.
Additionally, cows don’t continue to make milk (just like humans). They need to give birth each time, however you can pump them full of hormones to prolong the lactation in order to maximize the profit.
That’s part of the reason “dairy” cows only have a life expectancy of 4-5 years in an industrial dairy farming setting vs a ~20 year life expectancy at a sanctuary or in the wild.
The question is: what happens to the calves? The answer may surprise you /s
Well, they grow into happy cows because I don't like how veal tastes.
Less reddit answer, I will concede that milk production comes from repeated breeding and is intentionally exacerbated by removal of the calf. And also that we could just....not do that. However, I would like to correct this and say that dairy cow is a breed.
Beef cows are bred to be stocky for the meat. Wagyu beef, made famous and expensive for its texture and marbling, covers only four breeds of cow, all specifically japanese. You're not getting wagyu from a dairy cow in Kansas.
Regular breeding cows produce around 1.3 gallons (5 liters) of milk and gradually dry out over the course of a year as their calf grows and stops drinking. Dairy cows have the same time constraints, but produce eight gallons (30 liters).
They've been altered intentionally to far overproduce as a breed and while tapering off would be possible, they would need to be monitored every time they're lactating so they don't live in significant pain or die somehow.
It would be disingenuous, I think, to pretend every cow is the same cow and we can just stop and everything will instantly be fine. I suspect if they had no dietary use, they'd require so much care they'd be a niche thing and quite literally all of that would be dumped on the ground or something.
Perhaps we could give it to the homeless or to starving bear cubs if we cared about those things. But giving it any purpose would encourage further monetization.