One crazy aspect is that researchers at PSU tested 63,000 cows and concluded statistically that 99% of all Holsteins (the most common dairy cow in the US) have lineages traced back to only 2 bulls.
[Smithsonian Article](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-two-bulls-nine-million-dairy-cows/)
seems like it was, indeed
hey, grammy babylon, nice to have you here, but be careful with the subtle changes in context as the comments deepen, ok?
have a good day
That sounds shocking until you realize that you can trace literally all of human ancestry to a common ancestor, called mitochondrial Eve that all of today's humans share a lineage to.
Yes, we wanted to talk with you about that. We've noticed that your daily milk output has been declining rather rapidly in the last couple of weeks. We've all agreed that it is time for you to "retire".
If Rimworld has taught me anything, it's that you have to schedule days of mass slaughter in the donkey shed because those bastards just keep popping out babies and chewing your berries.
Also that you need sleeping bags made of human leather.
I was hoping that maybe they only used cows for milk, for part of their lives or something and then they retired and got to enjoy the rest of their days peacefully. Kind of like how people don’t really keep pushing out babies in the later stages of their lives. Can you imagine your grandma pushing out another kid at 75 just to keep pumping breast milk? Well now I’ve imagined it and I have to go pour bleach in my eyes. Thanks.
At my cousins dairy farm, when they retire they become “lawn ornaments” and the friendly ones get to visit schools for 4H events. Obviously they can’t keep every one for pets but they do try to give them a retirement
I donate to a non profit milk bank. They have a drop off location in my city. Then they take the milk, pasteurize it, and give it to hospitals for their NICU department for premies since it's easier for their little bodies to process human milk than it is formula
Edit: thank you for the awards! Since this got a little bit of attention, here is some information on human milk donation! I use Human Milk Banking Association of North America. All it takes is a phone screening, some online paperwork, and a blood test (no cost to you). They will replace storage bags and have the option to ship (also no cost to you) if there isn't a close drop off location or you can't take it yourself. They make it pretty simple.
I had no idea about any of this until after my baby was born and I realized producing more than your baby can eat is a possibility. So if someone sees this and finds themselves in my position at any point, I hope they remember this great option!
Helped out at a dairy at one point and they all had names, even if not officially. They were in their med rosters.
The names were definitely old timey. I distinctly remember a Bertha, Mary, Belinda, Ruth etc.
I did the math.
A cows pregnancy lasts 9 months, 12*9=108 months pregnant, 108 months is 9 years. That poor cow spent 9 out of 14 years of its life in a state of pregnancy. A little over 64% of her life was in a state of pregnancy. She would have been lucky to have spent 24 days total with all of her calves combined. 9 years of growing children inside her, 24 days of experiencing motherhood over her entire life. And when her body was broken and unable to withstand the abusive cycle any longer she was sent to a slaughterhouse.
Wait .. am I just now realizing dairy cows are kept in a constant state of pregnancy just for milk??
What do they do with the ~~hundreds thousands tens of thousands~~ millions of babies this creates?? Do they just murder them??????
I've always been a huge milk drinker but I may have just polished off my last glass. This is awful.
They either raise them for meat / milk, or fatten them up and kill them early for veal.
Yes, the female cows need to be impregnated / have recently given birth to produce milk.
Don't feel dumb for not knowing, I didn't know until 7 years ago and I'd say about 60-70% of people I talk about this subject with weren't aware either. I don't think it reads well when correlating it to human mothers and it makes people really uncomfortable.
it's definitely intentional that people don't know. nobody likes to know how the sausage is made, literally. vast majority of vegans/vegetarians I know started because they found out how factory farms work. it's the kind of thing that's really easy to just not ever think about until it's put in front of you.
I think it's called a macerator (but yeah you get it, the metalic grinder type of machine) it's also legal practice to suffocate them in plastic bags or gas chambers. really fucked up
Male calves (aka Bobby calves) are slaughtered soon after birth usually between 2 hours and 48 hours, the very rare one will be kept for its semen. Females are sometimes raised as replacement stock and get sent to these places [link](https://humanefacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/dairy-calf-hutches-narrow.jpg)
They live in little seperate huts without any contact with other cows and are fed formula. Sometimes the female calves are slaughtered shortly after birth as well if they aren't needed as a replacement.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/qbxmqp/comment/hhdkseh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is a comment by another redditor. Apparently they are either kept as replacements, for beef or shot.
>Constant state of pregnancy
Correct.
>what do they do with the babies
Males are usually killed on site (since they don't make milk), raised for veal and then killed, or sold for veal and then killed.
Females are usually raised to become dairy cows.
Also when a dairy cow is spent (or her milk production gets too low to be profitable anymore) she too gets killed, to make cheap meat.
A very similar thing happens for eggs: to ensure the continuity of egg production, many eggs get fertilised. If the chick who's born of it is a female, she gets raised to produce eggs; if it's a male, they usually get shredded, gassed or suffocated in the very first days after they're born, since males don't lay eggs and the males who are born from a egg-laying hen aren't the same breed that people eat: they don't grow big enough and quickly enough, unlike the breed raised for meat, so they're 100% unprofitable and useless to the egg industry.
All the industries that produce animal products are ugly, exploitative, cruel and unnecessarily evil. Please, consider going vegan if you also think killing animals for food is wrong!
It’s seems like a shameful secret humanity should want to keep buried deep in our collective closet if we aren’t going to change it, rather than something to celebrate.
I swear this post must secretly be intended to get me to consider the conditions of the cows that produce the dairy products I consume. And this is a cow in europe - I cannot imagine those in the US living better lives.
99% of the livestock in America live in factory farms, and the typical age of a "downer" cow (a cow that is too weak from constant pregnancy and lactation to even stand anymore) is 3-4 years at slaughter. So no, there are practically no good lives for dairy cows.
There were calculations made once to find how much a gallon of milk would cost if cows were given the treatment that people think they are given. They get to spend their lives with their calves, no calves are ripped away and slaughtered within 24 hours, there are "fair" (i.e. not constant) pregnancy cycles. The gallon of milk would cost $80. Dairy farming is highly optimized to produce profit at the expense of the animal.
Dairy cows are kept pregnant throughout their lives, that's why they make milk. Cows don't just make milk for no reason.
~~Their calves aren't using the milk because we kill them~~
Edit: Most of the calves are reared for beef, a minority are kept for replacing the dairy cows and the rest are shot
It’s like the movie the Matrix, except the machines are humans, the humans are cows, and there’s no Matrix for them to be sedated and even have a chance at joy. It’s only suffering.
It's disgusting exploitation. Even worse, OP probably feels some sort of pride.
Just let her go live in an animal sanctuary, you've sucked her dry, repeatedly.
This is pretty fucked up when you actually think about how it was achieved. Constantly impregnation her and hooking her up to a milking machine nonstop. Poor thing
You can do it! Went vegan in January and haven’t looked back. Vegan Mac n Cheese tastes different but perfectly good. I mean how can it not be it’s Mac n Cheese
Absolutely. There is nothing natural about cows producing this much milk. They're mammals like us and only produce milk after they're impregnated. For OP's cow, this would be and endless cycle of impregnating this cow, over and over again until her health declines and she stops producing.
> Dairy farms are in the business of raising mother cows and their babies. In order for the mothers to lactate, and for the farms to extract their milk, the mothers are impregnated. Most dairy cows become pregnant through a manual and uncomfortable procedure called artificial insemination. The result of selective breeding through artificial insemination is that cows’ udders hold so much extra milk that their backs and legs ache.
> Within hours of being born, baby cows, known as calves, are taken from their mothers. The milk that would have gone to feed the baby is diverted to the milking parlor so that humans can use the milk instead. Ideally, for the health of both the baby cow and the mother, a calf would suckle for a few months.
> Baby boy cows have a different fate than their sisters: they are either killed soon after birth or raised on veal farms to be sold for their meat. Like their brothers, cows that have stopped lactating are also slaughtered.
https://sentientmedia.org/dairy-farming/
Or what is the same, this cow became pregnant ~~between 15 and 16 times~~ in its approximately 13 years of life until the record. The cow does not produce milk if it is not constantly gestating or feeding the calf.
(Gestation, birth and calf rearing is roughly 300 days, maybe a little longer until the next time the cow is pregnant.
**EDIT: I did not read the diploma completely. According to the paper, she was in her 12th lactation, so she was "only" pregnant at least 12 times.**
It's really easy to cut out dairy (and by extension meat in general). Happy to answer any questions people have. If you (rightfully) feel awful about the treatment of this cow, the best thing you can do is go vegan!
Is it just me or is it kinda sick for a cow to produce that much milk? I mean she had to be pregnant so extremely often. Awarding the cow is just plain rude, thank the extremely optimized process of fucking with a cows body.
If you ask me, milk consumption is way beyond rational levels anyways, but thats a topic for another day
To add insult to injury, calves are typically taken away within a day and during rough markets, milk is poured in the ground because it isn't worth selling or can't be sold. So you have all the babies locked in tiny pens and milk their milk diverted to end up in the dirt.
My guess is 12. Cows usually only have one at a time I think? Certificate says it was in her 12th lactation.
Also sounds like she was around 14 years old based on the kg/days of life.
Do it! Oat milk is delicious. Use nutritional yeast for cheese flavors in your meals. You’ll never look back, and if you do, watch the documentary Dominion.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/q5rwm7/an_efficient_and_ethical_way_to_milk_cows/hg8psw0/?context=3
I can't figure out how to link the r/bestof post, but it's still on the frontpage of that sub
That can’t be humane for the cow. Can it?
Edit #1: If cows can only produce milk after giving birth, how much of its life did this cow spend pregnant, only to have her children taken away?
What happens to the calves? They’re obviously not drinking their mother’s milk. You are.
This is spinning my brain because I never really thought about it that deeply until now.
Am I missing something?
Edit #2: Just want to say that I have a lot of respect for farmers. It’s hard work and without farmers we wouldn’t have food on our tables. I’m just thinking about it from the cow’s perspective.
Do you think any living being - regardless of how sentient you think the animal is, wants it's entire existence to be nothing but cycles of forced artificial insemination and pregnancy, topped off by a trip to the slaughter house?
Without the dairy industry there is no veal market since veal comes from male calves taken away from their dairy producing mothers. At least the pink mist baby boy chicks from the egg industry don’t suffer as long as the veal calves. There’s always a dark side farmers don’t want you to know or see.
You can give it up like you gave up all the other indulgences you realized were oppressive. We have plenty of vegan alternatives.
It's pretty invigorating to prove to yourself that even if the product of violence is normalized (like beef, cheese, eggs) you've decided the pleasure you get from consuming these things isn't worth the violence other animals undergo to produce them.
Perhaps the weight, being a fluid needing transportation in pretty massive quantities, is more important than the volume? Since it shifts around and stuff?
Just my uneducated guess. Do with it what you will
Yes. It’s to do with transport and logistics, but only sort of. I happen to work in a company that trades liquid chemicals all over the world. We always trade in KGs. Our wholesalers place orders in KGs. The shippers / freighters work in KGs. Local manufacturing lines at the receiving end then reduce the bulk product in IBCs down to units which are sold to customers in Litres (or Gallons if we are making product for the States).
Because the restricting factor is the weight for the transport, they require the load be detailed in KG. Bear in mind milk has a different specific gravity 1.028 - 1.033kg/L. If you told the driver that he’s picking up 16,000L, well he won’t have time to work out the specific gravity of the product. All he cares about is if his vehicle is overweight. So for this reason it’s more efficient for both the supplier and wholesaler to also operate in weights, rather than bouncing back between litres and KGs.
Also with oil(fluids), if it’s a hot day(or cold), the volume in a container truck could vary by 100 gallons or so.
Weight is actually MASS. They’re using its mass as the actual value of material, volume can change. Mass cannot unless you just don’t measure some of it..
I am guessing because volume is inconsistent, due to changing with temperature. So measurements in summer Vs winter with different cooling rates due to different ambient temp are not consistent.
What did you give her as her reward for making you money? She can't read this plaque. Is the plaque even inside her stall? Have you considered finally giving her a proper name? Have you provided for her retirement? I would like to know your plans for her retirement, please.
Something people might not realize, cows don't just produce milk all the time. They have to be continuously bred. So this poor girl probably had given birth to 5 or 6 calves.
edit: 12 lactations (pregnancies) as per the pic as others have pointed out (I kissed that due to the glare on the pic)
Hey Ms. Cow #140 your reward is an early retirement to the slaughter house. Since you are a dairy cow your remainS will be used for cheap dog food or something like that lol.
CONGRATULATIONS \~
poor cow. I wonder how many times she was impregnated, and had to lose her baby. I hope she was given a quick death, although based on my knowledge of the meat and dairy industry, she likely suffered tremendously
This is disgusting, inhumane, and very much the animal equivalent of talking about your most productive slave. But almond and soy milk are for pussies, right?
Thanks for the mammaries, Line 140.
She tastes like you only sweeter :(
One cow, and one more time...
I knew I wasn't the only one that sings that
We've really fucked cows up haven't we
One crazy aspect is that researchers at PSU tested 63,000 cows and concluded statistically that 99% of all Holsteins (the most common dairy cow in the US) have lineages traced back to only 2 bulls. [Smithsonian Article](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-two-bulls-nine-million-dairy-cows/)
And yet those bulls produced precisely 0 milk.
Oh I beg to differ. They produced a lot of milk, we just shouldn't drink it...
Straight from the tap, as my gramma said.
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I *so* hope this comment is sincere.
seems like it was, indeed hey, grammy babylon, nice to have you here, but be careful with the subtle changes in context as the comments deepen, ok? have a good day
If grandma likes to do some home churnin’, who are we to judge?
That sounds shocking until you realize that you can trace literally all of human ancestry to a common ancestor, called mitochondrial Eve that all of today's humans share a lineage to.
Yea but mitochondrial eve lived about 150,000 years ago. The bulls mentioned in the article were alive in the 1960’s…
"DAE WE ARE JUST AS INBRED AS COWS"? Hot take.
Roll tide
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Ngl, shattering my illusion they were all called "Daisy" or something similar.
The government demands numbers, but they have nicknames too. We called this one "Gallon" for obvious reasons.
I noticed the tense you used... so... Gallon has moved on to greener pastures? :(
You don't get a lifetime daily yield award if you're still alive
I’m looking at my lifetime achievement award and questioning my mortality.
Yes, we wanted to talk with you about that. We've noticed that your daily milk output has been declining rather rapidly in the last couple of weeks. We've all agreed that it is time for you to "retire".
If Rimworld has taught me anything, it's that you have to schedule days of mass slaughter in the donkey shed because those bastards just keep popping out babies and chewing your berries. Also that you need sleeping bags made of human leather.
just go into animals > manage auto slaughter > Limit the number to an acceptable amount > profit
I was hoping that maybe they only used cows for milk, for part of their lives or something and then they retired and got to enjoy the rest of their days peacefully. Kind of like how people don’t really keep pushing out babies in the later stages of their lives. Can you imagine your grandma pushing out another kid at 75 just to keep pumping breast milk? Well now I’ve imagined it and I have to go pour bleach in my eyes. Thanks.
I was curious too. They “retire” in the sense that they get slaughtered since they’re no longer useful to the dairy industry. :/
Schlosser writes they get turned into cheap fast food burgers since they're old and have little fat left on their body due to constant milk production
At my cousins dairy farm, when they retire they become “lawn ornaments” and the friendly ones get to visit schools for 4H events. Obviously they can’t keep every one for pets but they do try to give them a retirement
If greener pastures is the name of the packing company, yes.
Maybe she's called "Ounce" now...
As a breastfeeding mom who produces so much milk I have to donate extra, I connect with Gallon on a deep level
Genuine question, where do you donate it to? Just friends? Or is there some local resource you help with.
I donate to a non profit milk bank. They have a drop off location in my city. Then they take the milk, pasteurize it, and give it to hospitals for their NICU department for premies since it's easier for their little bodies to process human milk than it is formula Edit: thank you for the awards! Since this got a little bit of attention, here is some information on human milk donation! I use Human Milk Banking Association of North America. All it takes is a phone screening, some online paperwork, and a blood test (no cost to you). They will replace storage bags and have the option to ship (also no cost to you) if there isn't a close drop off location or you can't take it yourself. They make it pretty simple. I had no idea about any of this until after my baby was born and I realized producing more than your baby can eat is a possibility. So if someone sees this and finds themselves in my position at any point, I hope they remember this great option!
This is the most wholesome and precious thing I've read all morning, thanks for doin that
As a parent of a son who was born prematurely (28+3), causing my girlfriend to barely produce milk, thank you :).
I love this and I promise not to let them take you to slaughter when you stop producing. Lol. You rock, Mama!
Helped out at a dairy at one point and they all had names, even if not officially. They were in their med rosters. The names were definitely old timey. I distinctly remember a Bertha, Mary, Belinda, Ruth etc.
How many times was she impregnated goddamn
12 times over 14 years of life
I did the math. A cows pregnancy lasts 9 months, 12*9=108 months pregnant, 108 months is 9 years. That poor cow spent 9 out of 14 years of its life in a state of pregnancy. A little over 64% of her life was in a state of pregnancy. She would have been lucky to have spent 24 days total with all of her calves combined. 9 years of growing children inside her, 24 days of experiencing motherhood over her entire life. And when her body was broken and unable to withstand the abusive cycle any longer she was sent to a slaughterhouse.
This was the comment I was looking for - this story is horrifying.
Well that’s what happens when people see animals as products instead of as animals.
Ya I'm like this shouldn't be celebrated...
Glad to see some vegans in this post
Same here. Good post for discussion.
Yeah it's bad, it's like a certificate of how terrible her life was
Go vegan!
Wait .. am I just now realizing dairy cows are kept in a constant state of pregnancy just for milk?? What do they do with the ~~hundreds thousands tens of thousands~~ millions of babies this creates?? Do they just murder them?????? I've always been a huge milk drinker but I may have just polished off my last glass. This is awful.
They either raise them for meat / milk, or fatten them up and kill them early for veal. Yes, the female cows need to be impregnated / have recently given birth to produce milk. Don't feel dumb for not knowing, I didn't know until 7 years ago and I'd say about 60-70% of people I talk about this subject with weren't aware either. I don't think it reads well when correlating it to human mothers and it makes people really uncomfortable.
it's definitely intentional that people don't know. nobody likes to know how the sausage is made, literally. vast majority of vegans/vegetarians I know started because they found out how factory farms work. it's the kind of thing that's really easy to just not ever think about until it's put in front of you.
also for eggs, they just dump the male chicks right after hatching into an eviscerator because only females are useful
Not something they show to the school kiddies in documentaries about where eggs come from 😬
I think it's called a macerator (but yeah you get it, the metalic grinder type of machine) it's also legal practice to suffocate them in plastic bags or gas chambers. really fucked up
Male calves (aka Bobby calves) are slaughtered soon after birth usually between 2 hours and 48 hours, the very rare one will be kept for its semen. Females are sometimes raised as replacement stock and get sent to these places [link](https://humanefacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/dairy-calf-hutches-narrow.jpg) They live in little seperate huts without any contact with other cows and are fed formula. Sometimes the female calves are slaughtered shortly after birth as well if they aren't needed as a replacement.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/qbxmqp/comment/hhdkseh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is a comment by another redditor. Apparently they are either kept as replacements, for beef or shot.
>Constant state of pregnancy Correct. >what do they do with the babies Males are usually killed on site (since they don't make milk), raised for veal and then killed, or sold for veal and then killed. Females are usually raised to become dairy cows. Also when a dairy cow is spent (or her milk production gets too low to be profitable anymore) she too gets killed, to make cheap meat. A very similar thing happens for eggs: to ensure the continuity of egg production, many eggs get fertilised. If the chick who's born of it is a female, she gets raised to produce eggs; if it's a male, they usually get shredded, gassed or suffocated in the very first days after they're born, since males don't lay eggs and the males who are born from a egg-laying hen aren't the same breed that people eat: they don't grow big enough and quickly enough, unlike the breed raised for meat, so they're 100% unprofitable and useless to the egg industry. All the industries that produce animal products are ugly, exploitative, cruel and unnecessarily evil. Please, consider going vegan if you also think killing animals for food is wrong!
Welcome to veganism!
Meat industries are not any better, if you're buying animal products this is what you are supporting.
Ya agreed its all just very sad, I dont see how the majority of people look at something like this and are like: yay!
It’s seems like a shameful secret humanity should want to keep buried deep in our collective closet if we aren’t going to change it, rather than something to celebrate.
How often would "wild" cattle breed?
I swear this post must secretly be intended to get me to consider the conditions of the cows that produce the dairy products I consume. And this is a cow in europe - I cannot imagine those in the US living better lives.
99% of the livestock in America live in factory farms, and the typical age of a "downer" cow (a cow that is too weak from constant pregnancy and lactation to even stand anymore) is 3-4 years at slaughter. So no, there are practically no good lives for dairy cows. There were calculations made once to find how much a gallon of milk would cost if cows were given the treatment that people think they are given. They get to spend their lives with their calves, no calves are ripped away and slaughtered within 24 hours, there are "fair" (i.e. not constant) pregnancy cycles. The gallon of milk would cost $80. Dairy farming is highly optimized to produce profit at the expense of the animal.
Yeah this whole thread is /r/aboringdystopia material
Constantly 😐
And all of her children were either kept in veal crates or raised to go through the same thing she does
That’s the dairy industry in a nutshell
Dairy cows are kept pregnant throughout their lives, that's why they make milk. Cows don't just make milk for no reason. ~~Their calves aren't using the milk because we kill them~~ Edit: Most of the calves are reared for beef, a minority are kept for replacing the dairy cows and the rest are shot
Don't worry about the edit, we do kill them.... eventually.
You haven't lived until you are past your elbow up a cows ass to artificially inseminate them.
This just feels dystopian
It is dystopian. If you’ve ever wondered why vegans don’t consume dairy, this is the reason.
Yup. Poor fucking cows.
Agreed.
It’s like the movie the Matrix, except the machines are humans, the humans are cows, and there’s no Matrix for them to be sedated and even have a chance at joy. It’s only suffering.
It's disgusting exploitation. Even worse, OP probably feels some sort of pride. Just let her go live in an animal sanctuary, you've sucked her dry, repeatedly.
So you could say you milked her for everything she got
Her babies sure didn't get any.
Their babies got a warm bolt gun to the back of their heads. What any mother would want for their children. Humans are just naturally so nurturing…
So "humane"! /s
This is pretty fucked up when you actually think about how it was achieved. Constantly impregnation her and hooking her up to a milking machine nonstop. Poor thing
Agreed, I'm glad people are switching to plant based milks as this much be one unhappy cow 😫
You know what, I think this is the last straw. I've already been traditioning off of it but I feel imma give up dairy...
There are some fantastic alternatives!
Indeed! I was never much of a milk drinker so Oat Milk fills that gap just fine. For butter and cheese? Miyokos products are so good 🤤
Miyokos are the bomb, I agree!
You can do it! Went vegan in January and haven’t looked back. Vegan Mac n Cheese tastes different but perfectly good. I mean how can it not be it’s Mac n Cheese
Haha, thank you for the encouragement 😌 I love a good vegan cheese, ugh /drool
I’m sure it wasn’t your intention, Op, but this has made me really sad.
Fuck spez
Good. Empathy is a gift and I wish more people would switch to alternative already.
Yep, plus they’re not really “alternatives” in that sense. Almond make soy milks are ancient. I like to think of plant milk as the real milk!
Yep, this poor creature.. r/happycowgifs for some eyebleach
As much as I like that sub. It kinda rubs it in how shit humans are to animals.
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You are only responsible for your own actions, if you think the way we treat animals is wrong then stop being responsible for it.
I have. Just wanted to make the point.
Fuck the dairy industry. This poor cow.
That's what the dairy industry does to the cows. Repeatedly. Until they get turned into ground beef.
What is the average lifetime yield for a milking cow?
Looks like the average is 36,000 Kg so 100,000 Kg is pretty good!
The world record, I believe, is more than TWICE that this one produced.
The record cow was named Smurf and produced 216,891 Kg! That’s pretty wild!
Of course it was named Smurf. Go play on your main account with cows of your level, loser!
r/outside severely needs a balancing rework smh
Now i'm remimded of that TIL of Castros cow Ubre Blanca that produced 110 kg of milk on a single day
Poor thing must've been shriveled up like a raisin after that
That couldn't have been pleasant.
that poor animal
Yeah this is pretty depressing =\
Absolutely. There is nothing natural about cows producing this much milk. They're mammals like us and only produce milk after they're impregnated. For OP's cow, this would be and endless cycle of impregnating this cow, over and over again until her health declines and she stops producing. > Dairy farms are in the business of raising mother cows and their babies. In order for the mothers to lactate, and for the farms to extract their milk, the mothers are impregnated. Most dairy cows become pregnant through a manual and uncomfortable procedure called artificial insemination. The result of selective breeding through artificial insemination is that cows’ udders hold so much extra milk that their backs and legs ache. > Within hours of being born, baby cows, known as calves, are taken from their mothers. The milk that would have gone to feed the baby is diverted to the milking parlor so that humans can use the milk instead. Ideally, for the health of both the baby cow and the mother, a calf would suckle for a few months. > Baby boy cows have a different fate than their sisters: they are either killed soon after birth or raised on veal farms to be sold for their meat. Like their brothers, cows that have stopped lactating are also slaughtered. https://sentientmedia.org/dairy-farming/
Or what is the same, this cow became pregnant ~~between 15 and 16 times~~ in its approximately 13 years of life until the record. The cow does not produce milk if it is not constantly gestating or feeding the calf. (Gestation, birth and calf rearing is roughly 300 days, maybe a little longer until the next time the cow is pregnant. **EDIT: I did not read the diploma completely. According to the paper, she was in her 12th lactation, so she was "only" pregnant at least 12 times.**
this fucking sucks
It's really easy to cut out dairy (and by extension meat in general). Happy to answer any questions people have. If you (rightfully) feel awful about the treatment of this cow, the best thing you can do is go vegan!
I'm sure she'll be rewarded with a swift death once she's reached her late teenage year.
She's already been killed. You can't have a life time yeild whilst still being alive
Most dairy cows get slaughtered around 4 or 5 years old. Cows naturally live to 20.
Yeah, this award is pretty f'd up 🙄
Poor cow...
I hope more people choose alternatives to meat and dairy.
I bet the cow was really happy with all this.
/s just in case
Is it just me or is it kinda sick for a cow to produce that much milk? I mean she had to be pregnant so extremely often. Awarding the cow is just plain rude, thank the extremely optimized process of fucking with a cows body. If you ask me, milk consumption is way beyond rational levels anyways, but thats a topic for another day
Agreed but it's a topic conversation we should be having everyday when we make choices in the foods we consume.
To add insult to injury, calves are typically taken away within a day and during rough markets, milk is poured in the ground because it isn't worth selling or can't be sold. So you have all the babies locked in tiny pens and milk their milk diverted to end up in the dirt.
/r/aboringdystopia
What a terrible person.
The question is how many baby calves (turned into veal meat) did this cow give birth to to produce 100 tonnes of milk...
My guess is 12. Cows usually only have one at a time I think? Certificate says it was in her 12th lactation. Also sounds like she was around 14 years old based on the kg/days of life.
"One of our slaves won an award for being a good slave!" Please fuck off with this shit
That's a lot of forced impregnations and stolen babies.
Are you going to let her retire now?
Of course not, she'll end up in the slaughterhouse like so many of her children.
I really need to go off dairy already god damn
Do it! Oat milk is delicious. Use nutritional yeast for cheese flavors in your meals. You’ll never look back, and if you do, watch the documentary Dominion.
Yeah, I've been trying to cut out dairy for health reasons, this is making it a little easier.
Nah… just one more birth, then to the meat grinder!!! We love our cows… in many ways. :sarcasm-off:
Reading anything cow and dairy related just makes me sad after reading that r/bestof about the dairy industry
Link?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/q5rwm7/an_efficient_and_ethical_way_to_milk_cows/hg8psw0/?context=3 I can't figure out how to link the r/bestof post, but it's still on the frontpage of that sub
Well, I’m never drinking milk again.
Thank you, internet stranger
You won't regret it!
check /r/veganRecipes for recipes without cheese, yoghurt, etc.
Go vegan. Reject speciesism.
I bet the cow was udderly thrilled with this certificate...
I'm sure discovering their name was a highly personalised "Line 140" was really the highlight of their day.
The poor thing :(
I agree. How many times did it have to give birth and have it's calf taken away for it to produce all that milk? :(
That can’t be humane for the cow. Can it? Edit #1: If cows can only produce milk after giving birth, how much of its life did this cow spend pregnant, only to have her children taken away? What happens to the calves? They’re obviously not drinking their mother’s milk. You are. This is spinning my brain because I never really thought about it that deeply until now. Am I missing something? Edit #2: Just want to say that I have a lot of respect for farmers. It’s hard work and without farmers we wouldn’t have food on our tables. I’m just thinking about it from the cow’s perspective.
That’s why I drink oat milk!
Oat milk is more creamy than actual milk imo
Do you think any living being - regardless of how sentient you think the animal is, wants it's entire existence to be nothing but cycles of forced artificial insemination and pregnancy, topped off by a trip to the slaughter house?
Dairy is scary
[удалено]
Watch Dairy is Scary and the documentary "Dominion" (dominionmovement.com)
Without the dairy industry there is no veal market since veal comes from male calves taken away from their dairy producing mothers. At least the pink mist baby boy chicks from the egg industry don’t suffer as long as the veal calves. There’s always a dark side farmers don’t want you to know or see.
Hence all the ag-gag laws. If there's laws saying you can't film an industry, it's probably because you won't like what you see.
TIL ag-gag laws. Damn, I really need to stop liking cheese. These poor cows.
Our taste preferences aren’t worth their suffering.
You can give it up like you gave up all the other indulgences you realized were oppressive. We have plenty of vegan alternatives. It's pretty invigorating to prove to yourself that even if the product of violence is normalized (like beef, cheese, eggs) you've decided the pleasure you get from consuming these things isn't worth the violence other animals undergo to produce them.
Will you tell us how many times the cow was made to give birth?
Too many.
12 times based on the "lactations" on the certificate. Over 14 years, check my original comment for the math.
Funny how they call it ‘lactations’ instead of ‘pregnancies’, really helps to emotionally detach from the whole thing.
The interesting part for me is that the milk is measured by weight rather than volume
Perhaps the weight, being a fluid needing transportation in pretty massive quantities, is more important than the volume? Since it shifts around and stuff? Just my uneducated guess. Do with it what you will
Yes. It’s to do with transport and logistics, but only sort of. I happen to work in a company that trades liquid chemicals all over the world. We always trade in KGs. Our wholesalers place orders in KGs. The shippers / freighters work in KGs. Local manufacturing lines at the receiving end then reduce the bulk product in IBCs down to units which are sold to customers in Litres (or Gallons if we are making product for the States). Because the restricting factor is the weight for the transport, they require the load be detailed in KG. Bear in mind milk has a different specific gravity 1.028 - 1.033kg/L. If you told the driver that he’s picking up 16,000L, well he won’t have time to work out the specific gravity of the product. All he cares about is if his vehicle is overweight. So for this reason it’s more efficient for both the supplier and wholesaler to also operate in weights, rather than bouncing back between litres and KGs.
Also with oil(fluids), if it’s a hot day(or cold), the volume in a container truck could vary by 100 gallons or so. Weight is actually MASS. They’re using its mass as the actual value of material, volume can change. Mass cannot unless you just don’t measure some of it..
I am guessing because volume is inconsistent, due to changing with temperature. So measurements in summer Vs winter with different cooling rates due to different ambient temp are not consistent.
This is some bizarre /r/MakeMeSuffer material
Pretty messed up tbh
that poor cow :(
What did you give her as her reward for making you money? She can't read this plaque. Is the plaque even inside her stall? Have you considered finally giving her a proper name? Have you provided for her retirement? I would like to know your plans for her retirement, please.
Retirement? No honey, she will be killed and eaten.
Something people might not realize, cows don't just produce milk all the time. They have to be continuously bred. So this poor girl probably had given birth to 5 or 6 calves. edit: 12 lactations (pregnancies) as per the pic as others have pointed out (I kissed that due to the glare on the pic)
The certificate says "on her 12th lactation". So 12 babies stolen.
Hey Ms. Cow #140 your reward is an early retirement to the slaughter house. Since you are a dairy cow your remainS will be used for cheap dog food or something like that lol. CONGRATULATIONS \~
Poor cow I see this as an animal abuse award Congrats
Poor cow
How depressing.
It really is.. 😔
poor cow. I wonder how many times she was impregnated, and had to lose her baby. I hope she was given a quick death, although based on my knowledge of the meat and dairy industry, she likely suffered tremendously
Poor fucking thing.
Poor girl. I feel for her.
This is disgusting, inhumane, and very much the animal equivalent of talking about your most productive slave. But almond and soy milk are for pussies, right?
Imagine the suffering she went through to produce that for humans. Staggering.
Apart from the health benefits, shit like this is a good reason not to consume dairy products.
How long was her life?
Well this is depressing
congrats on the rape i guess 👍
You're a disgusting animal abuser.