Cows and lactation

[flying plum]

i was talking to someone (on a plane of all places) about veganism the other week. it was a good conversation, the person was open minded and asking questions without attacking me, which makes a change.

however, when i was explaining why i didn't drink milk, he understood the reasoning, particularly regarding leather etc etc., but he had a question that I couldn't answer. perhaps someone else can so i don't have this 'hole' in my knowledge that someone can trip me up on next time!

I was explaining that how, in order to produce milk, cows have to be pregnant, just like humans, and how this is a stressful process for them, with baby removed (and then the leather/supporting the meat industry off shoots etc etc). however, he asked why, once they've been pregnant once, cows couldn't just stay being milked without being reimpregnated, just like humans who continue to breastfeed their children beyond infancy do.

I answered that it wasn't really a question of welfare for me, but that aside I presumed that cows are more productive if they are pregnant more frequently and also there is the bonus by-product of the poor wee calf, who presumably sometimes will go into milk production if it is a female, and has other by products if not.

Is this correct?

amanda

[snivelingchild]

Humans tend to ween unnaturally early in some countries. The global average age is 3, so humans who breastfeed aren't going "abnormally long." Secondly, after a while, the milk production lessens whether you want it to or not. While some people breast feed for a very long time, the amount they produce at the end is not nearly the amount they did at the beginning.

Thirdly, no matter how long they nurse, any milk you take is milk being stolen from the calf and replaced with soy milk. If you ween the calf too early, and continue taking milk, you are hurting the calf's nutrition. If you ween the calf at an acceptable age, but keep collecting milk to keep the mother producing, you are taxing the mother's health and nutrition for your own benefits. Not cool.

[harpy]

This old thread is relevant

http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19631


but some of the links are broken. Try these sites: CIWF and
Defra
ETA there are also sites showing "yield curves" for lactating cows, e.g. http://www.delaval.co.uk/Dairy_Knowl..._Dairy_Cow.htm

I think you are are right though: the more time has elapsed since calving the less milk the cow will produce. I'm not sure about the economic attractiveness of producing calves as half of them (the male ones) are of relatively little use to the farmers so the farmers might produce fewer calves if they could, or ideally only female ones.

[RubyDuby]

The male calves get sold for veal. I would think that would be profitable.

[harpy]

There isn't much demand for veal here, Ruby, as people tend to think of it as more "cruel" than other meats (which it probably is when produced according to traditional methods). So a lot of the male ones get killed at birth.

In fact some animal welfare organisations are trying to encourage people to eat (British) veal so that the male calves get to live a bit longer but I'm not sure I see that as being a lot of benefit to the calves - though it's certainly better than being exported to the continent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...ca-899778.html

[RubyDuby]

wow. Yeah, nobody seems to care that it's cruel around here...

[MoonDance]

That's really sad RubyDuby, I'm sorry to hear that One of my uncles is like that

[rxseeeyse]

ah, so that's why they'd like cows to get pregnant all the time.
I like the website about "cow's yield", how it compare cow with reindeer and rats and rabbits?
I think it's funny that no one would ever drink rat's milk but everyone seem to be fine with cow or goat's milk, even rabbit milk, would anyone drink that?
honestly i should read more about psychology and then I might see why do so many people cling onto their old behaviour, just won't change even they knew their old behaviour is ruining everything.
If drinking rat's milk have always been the culture, then I guess right now we would have rats farm and drinking those milk thinking that tastes good?!?

[harpy]

I guess so rxseeeyse. Apart from habit and culture I think a lot of people are unfortunately convinced that they "need" milk for health, despite the evidence to the contrary.

I should be able to get access to hedgehog's milk, I wonder how that would taste?

[rxseeeyse]

well probably something NOt so tasty lol.