Liberation BC launched a cow-led search party on Wednesday May 9th to find calves that are stolen by the millions each year from mother cows by the Canadian dairy industry. We gathered to promote our Cow Ribbon Campaign, which raises awareness about the suffering of mother cows and encourages the public to choose dairy alternatives.
Has anyone seen my calf?
A grieving mother cow with tears in her eyes and a hankie held up a sign with the details on her missing calf and led the public vigil. Many people wanted to take pictures with our cow volunteer!
Our super-sized milk carton also got a lot of attention.
The enthusiastic group of volunteers handed out approximately 400 pamphlets over lunch and talked to the public at the City Centre Skytrain Station at Georgia and Granville Streets.
Milk comes from a grieving mother.
Our message that Mother’s Day is for mothers of all species, not just humans, was positively received by many people. A number of people I spoke with told me they didn’t eat dairy, and there were even a few vegans who came to say hello.
Harry and William were born in 2011. Like the mothers of Arnold and his friends, Harry and William’s mothers are anonymous, lost to the industry like so many other dairy cows. They may still be alive, suffering through repeated artificial inseminations and pregnancies only to have their calves taken away within hours, or they may already have gone to slaughter, their bodies exhausted after only a few years of intensive milk production.
Harry and William were on a truck with nearly 100 other orphans of the dairy industry, en route to the slaughterhouse, when they were rescued by wildlife rehabilitators. Emaciated, hypothermic, and suffering dehydration as a result of severe diarrhea, they were so sick that the veterinarians did not expect them to live. It took some time and a lot of intensive care, but Harry and William pulled through.
The pair now lives at Farm Sanctuary’s Animal Acres in southern California. You can see a video of them enjoying their freedom here:
We can’t tell you about the mothers who gave birth to Arnold and his friends, but we know that they are only a few of the millions of dairy cows who are impregnated year after year only to lose their calves within hours of their birth so that we can drink their milk. These mothers may already be dead, having been sent to slaughter for cheap beef–a common fate of dairy cows whose bodies give out at 4 or 5 years of age, only a quarter of their lifespan. The average Canadian dairy cow gives 9,519 kilograms of milk a year, seven times more than she would naturally.
Conrad
Though many of the male calves born to these cows are raised for veal or slaughtered outright as a byproduct, others are sent to auction. Such was the fate of eleven calves, including Arnold, Tweed, Conrad, Milbank, and Orlando, in 2011. Just days old, the eleven babies were sold for a few dollars each to a farmer who planned to raise them for cheap beef. When the calves contracted pneumonia, he opted not to spend the $20 or so that it would have cost to provide proper treatment for all eleven, choosing instead to shoot them.
Millbank
Authorities intervened after the farmer had killed six calves, and he was arrested–not for animal cruelty, but for violating his probation by discharging a firearm. Rescuers from Farm Sanctuary stepped in and saved the remaining calves, who were extremely underweight and dehydrated, as well as unfed, as their milk replacer was mouldy. They were taken immediately to the Cornell University Hospital for Animals to be given antibiotics.
Orlando
The oldest and strongest calf, Arnold, recovered first and was released after one day, but his four friends were slower to heal and spent days in the hospital. In addition to pneumonia, they were suffering from ringworm, giardia, umbilical hernias, Bovine Papular Stomatitis, hypoglycemia, and sinus arrhythmia, among other conditions. Their intensive medical treatment continued even after all of them were released to Farm Sanctuary’s New York Shelter.
Tweed
In a safe environment, the calves finally began to flourish. Orlando, who at one point was the sickest of all, has revealed himself to be playful and goofy. His best friend, Conrad, the smallest calf, is also the sweetest. Millbank is very shy, as is Tweed–though he appears to be learning some bravery from Arnold! It’s hard to imagine that all five of them were almost just another casualty of the dairy industry, and now have the opportunity to live 20 to 25 years at Farm Sanctuary.
(Information about Arnold and his friends taken from Farm Sanctuary’s 2011 Featured Rescues.)
Sadie is from a typical dairy farm. She was impregnated four times and all of her babies were taken from her immediately after birth. Her male calves were sold as veal and her female calves were used to replace adult dairy cows sent to slaughter.
She lived with 6,000 other cows on a dry lot. She never ate grass or roamed free.
When she was 4 or 5, Sadie developed mastitis, a painful, swollen bacterial infection of the udder which reduces the quality of milk by increasing its somatic cell count. (That’s pus, by the way. Yum!) Mastitis is not unusual on dairy farms; in Quebec, one of the biggest milk producers in Canada, it is the second most common reason for culling. Like so many other dairy cows before her, Sadie was slated to be sent to slaughter at only a quarter of her lifespan.
Before that happened, however, a veterinary teaching hospital purchased her and used her body as a teaching tool. They did not treat her mastitis, though, and after 20 weeks she was en route to the slaughterhouse once more.
A vet student stepped in and saved her life. Sadie has lived at Animal Place since June of 2005.
I think by now everyone has seen or at least heard about the 4 minute undercover investigation video released by Mercy for Animals earlier this week. Workers at Conklin Dairy Farms in Ohio engaged in sadistic abuse of the animals they are paid to care for. Calves having their heads stomped on, diary cows tied and then beaten in the head with crowbars, cows having their udders stabbed with pitch forks…
What industry allows employees to get away with this? Imagine an employee at a grocery store stomping on perfectly good tomatoes. They would be fired on the spot. But what if the tomatoes were too rotten to be sold? I suppose then, the employee might get away with it. Perhaps the manager would even join in on one particularly frustrating or boring day at work. I think this is precisely what happened at 4th generation, family-operated, Conklin Dairy Farms.
In the undercover video footage, you see Conklin employee Billy Gregg bragging to his new co-worker (the undercover investigator) about abusing a cow that was being sent to slaughter because her inflamed udders would not allow her to produce any more milk:
“we beat the fuck out of this cow, we stabbed her, I broke her tail in three place, kept stabbing her ass. Beat her. Next day Gary says, “we’re gonna send her to beef” Cuz she had mastitis and all. Couldn’t get her in the parlor. I drugged that cow. I beat that fucker until her face was like this big around”.
In an industry that treats sentient animals like production units and commodities, a dairy cow with mastitis is as good as a rotten tomato at a grocery store. And since there are about as many laws protecting a rotten tomato as a unproductive dairy cow, you can do whatever you like with them.
In the days following the release of the footage, the agriculture community in Ohio denounced the activities that had taken place at the farm and blamed it on one bad apple, Billy Gregg. He was charged with 12 counts of animal cruelty and has been jailed. Under current Ohio animal cruelty law, Billy will not be charged with any felonies, just misdemeanors. Before you start trashing the hillbilly Americans and their backwards law system, please note that Canadian animal cruelty laws are about the same – if not worse.
The owner Gary Conklin said in a statement, “The video shows animal care that is clearly inconsistent with the high standards we set for our farm and its workers, and we find the specific mistreatment shown on the video to be reprehensible and unacceptable”. Ironically, Gary Conklin was one of the guys shown kicking a downed cow in the video (at 1:26).
Everyone in the small Ohio farming community is putting on a fabulous display of outrage by vocally denouncing Billy Gregg’s actions and painting him as a psychologically disturbed criminal who acted alone. But no one else shown on the video has been charged with animal cruelty and the dairy farm has not been shut down.
It is clear that the community’s attempt at denouncing animal cruelty is disingenuous. If there really is a culture that rallied around good husbandry and condemned deliberate acts of abuse against the farm animals, why did Billy Gregg feel so comfortable bragging to a newly hired employee (the undercover investigator) about all the egregious acts of cruelty? If it wasn’t a socially accepted practice, why did he do it in front of his coworkers and why did the owner take part in the abuse? It is apparent that the precedent set by the culture around Billy Gregg is that abusing animals is tolerated, accepted and even celebrated.
Billy Gregg in court (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
What happened at Conklin Dairy Farms is not an isolated incident by any means. Every time an animal rights group hires an investigator to go to a randomly selected farm they come back with more than they set out to get. Even without any of the abuse shown in the 4 minute footage, Mercy for Animals would have obtained footage that documented the systematic abuse of dairy cows who are kept constantly pregnant, suffering from chronic mastitis and the killing or disposal of new born calves.
The animal agriculture industry is mostly self-regulated and it is obvious that this system is not working out. This November, people in Ohio will have the opportunity to vote for a ban on some of the worst practices in animal agriculture. It is true that the proposed law will not stop the abuses documented at Conklin Dairy Farms, but it will ensure that the animals on farms will have the bare minimum, such as the ability to turn around, stretch their limbs and spread their wings. It is not much too ask for, but even so, there is strong opposition from the farming community against the initiative to give farm animals just enough room to stretch their limbs. In fact, they are spending millions of dollars to make sure that this initiative does not pass. It really makes me wonder why anyone in animal agriculture would think Billy Gregg is a psychopath.
3 weeks ago the Mother’s Day Cow Ribbon campaign was launched. Since then we’ve mailed out ribbons to people all over Canada and the United States and as far away as the UK, Singapore, and Australia. People everywhere want to speak out for dairy cows this Mother’s Day.
And for good reason.
Dairy cows lose babies every year, one after the other, until the premature and horrible end of their life. Those babies never get to know their mothers. And their mothers never get to know their babies.
Wear your cow ribbon on Mother’s Day (May 9) and show your support for the mothers of the dairy industry. The goal is to have hundreds of people wearing ribbons on Mother’s Day and thousands of people getting ecards, reading messages on facebook, and more.
This mother’s day, wear your cow ribbon as a symbol of your concern for these suffering and abused mothers. Please take a stand and speak out for them. Every mother deserves to know and love her children, don’t you think?
The Cow Ribbon campaign has been written up in a few blogs you might want to check out:
The more I learn about the industries that exploit animals to be used for food, the more I realize that there is simply no concern for the animals or even for the humans who consume the meat of those animals.
Erik Marcus linked me to an article Martha Rosenberg has just written about the drug ractopamine, which is used in pigs and cattle as they near slaughter to increase weight gain. Ractopamine was originally developed as an asthma medication, and there is no period of time when the animals are taken off of the drug before slaughter.
While researchers and scientists investigate the cause of our diabetes, obesity, asthma and ADHD epidemics, they should ask why the FDA approved a livestock drug banned in 160 nations and responsible for hyperactivity, muscle breakdown and 10 percent mortality in pigs, according to angry farmers who phoned the manufacturer.
The beta agonist ractopamine, a repartitioning agent that increases protein synthesis, was recruited for livestock use when researchers found the drug, used in asthma, made mice more muscular says Beef magazine.
But unlike the growth promoting antibiotics and hormones used in livestock which are withdrawn as the animal nears slaughter, ractopamine is started as the animal nears slaughter. (Source)
And this isn’t just a mild antibiotic. In fact, people are warned to wear gloves and masks if they might come in contact with it:
How does a drug marked, “Not for use in humans. Individuals with cardiovascular disease should exercise special caution to avoid exposure. Use protective clothing, impervious gloves, protective eye wear, and a NIOSH-approved dust mask” become “safe” in human food? With no washout period? (Source)
Roctopamine is known to cause increased stress in animals and increases the likelihood that animals will arrive as downers at the slaughterhouse. But, even if the death rate increases, the weight gains from the use of ractopamine are great enough that it’s a net benefit to the farmer.
But at a cost of increased suffering for all of the animals, not to mention increased human health risk. Since the drug is given to animals up to the point of being shipped off to slaughter, who knows how much ends up getting washed into groundwater or how much remains in the meat when it is sold?
What’s striking to me is that China and Taiwan have banned the use of ractopamine because of its health risks. They won’t even allow meat into the country that contains traces of the drug. in 2007 a shipment of pig meat from a slaughterhouse in Canada was found to contain ractopamine, and they banned all imports of meat from that slaughterhouse. When China and Taiwan, both countries that have slightly questionable records when it comes to human safety, prohibit the use of a drug because of its health risks, there must be something to it.
And how can you know if the meat you eat has ractopamine in it? Any conventionally raised pigs or cattle may be fed ractopamine. There is no requirement that the farm disclose the use of this drug. It certainly doesn’t make it onto any packaging. How then can anyone make an informed decisions about what (or who) they are eating?
Quite frankly, no matter how carefully we watch the animal exploitation industries (meat, eggs, and dairy included) they are focused on maximizing profit. And the interests of animals and consumers alike are just obstacles to overcome in pursuit of that profit.
A rescued dairy cow, now safe from senseless violence
This Monday, someone stabbed 4 cows on a Comox Valley dairy farm. According to the Comox Valley Echo:
A senseless stabbing attack on four dairy cows at a farm on Dove Creek Road has the Comox Valley RCMP appealing to the public for information.
One of the four cows was so badly injured that she had to be put down, while the other three are expected to recover.
But one of those three cows was pregnant, due in June, and she has now aborted the fetus, likely due to the stress.
The owner of the farm, Barb Milley, is quoted as saying “Who would hurt innocent cows that have no grudge against anybody?”
This is a truly senseless attack on innocent animals. But it’s important to keep in mind that this is a working dairy farm that “has more than 200 cows of all ages and produces about 2,650 litres of milk per day.” So, in answer to Barb’s question, my answer would be: Barb Milley. How many innocent calves has she sent off to slaughter? How many cows has she sent to the slaughterhouse when they are past their prime milk-producing time?
Here’s another part of the story that’s not quite what it seems.
The cow that had to be put down was stabbed on both the left and right hand sides in the soft part of her belly, just like the pregnant cow, but the wounds were bad enough that a five-pin bowling ball-sized portion of her internal organs was outside her body.
She was sent to the slaughterhouse.
Being “put down” is not quite the same as being put on a truck, hauled to a slaughterhouse, getting hit by a captive bolt, hung upside-down, and bled out. What sort of merciful euthanasia is that?
No mention is made in the article that all of these “innocent cows that have no grudge against anybody” are destined for the slaughterhouse, where lots worse than getting stabbed will happen to them. This after having countless babies stolen from them, all so they can be forced into milk production, over and over again. Where’s the story about that? Why aren’t the police talking to Barb Milley about her systemic abuse of innocent animals? Why aren’t we outraged about the crimes committed on her farm every day?
From an Ontario Federation of Agriculture press release:
It’s something every livestock producer knows – if you have livestock on your farm, you are also going to have dead stock.
Safe disposal of that dead stock is increasingly a problem in Ontario for farmers and society.
… farmers are faced with paying a fee for the pick-up and disposal service. Coupled with losing a valuable animal this presents a double-sided hit to the balance sheet.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture has been working with the industry to find an acceptable solution that will keep our valuable disposal services in operation, providing farmers with an affordable alternative to on-farm disposal of deadstock. (Source)
Basically, what this means is that they want the government (and, more specifically, the taxpayers) to pick up the tab for disposal of dead animals.
Nevermind that the “dead stock” was a living, feeling, sentient being. To the farmers they are really just a commodity, and the death of an animal is just a “hit against the balance sheet.”
Farmers should have to pay for the full cost of any cleanup that is required due to their keeping and exploiting animals. Otherwise, we do not see the real cost of the meat they are “producing.”
They write: “The industry performs a vital service for Ontario and needs to remain sound.” If by vital they mean putting our health at risk, damaging the environment, and exploiting and killing millions of animals each year, then sure, it’s vital.
This super interesting new interactive chart from Animal Visuals shows how many animals die for one million calories’ worth of chicken, eggs, beef, veggies, grains, etc. You can sort it by total, by how many are slaughtered (intentionally, I assume?), and by the harvesting of fields, either to feed us or to feed animals.
Isn’t it fascinating that you can help more animals by dropping chicken and eggs than you can by dropping chicken, beef, and pork combined?
This also brings up the age old and ever compelling (yawn) argument against veganism–that we’re hurting animals accidentally when we harvest our fields, so why bother to curtail intentional slaughter at all? I covered this in Arguments Against Veganism, part 3, but this chart says more than I ever could have.
