Comment on Why Should I...
JelleWho@lemmy.world 1 day agoAs a person who check all cheese in the supermarket for this. The current state (EU/NL) is almost 60%, 60% of the cheese in our supermarket is without murdering baby cows. Which I up from last year, and it has been trending up for a while.
I have no clue how other countries are doing, my guess us worse. Some france people still label ‘Fish’ as ‘Vegan’
this_jury_is_hung@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That number moves much closer to 0% if you start counting the baby cows killed in order to keep their mothers perpetually lactating, rather than just those whose bodies were used as a direct ingredient.
A cow will be impregnated 6-8 times during her life on a typical dairy farm, before she is killed af half her natural lifespan to be replaced by a younger cow. One of those baby cows will be raised as that replacement cow, the rest will be killed shortly after birth since.
Killing baby cows is an inherent part of cow-milk production.
hans@feddit.org 1 day ago
most dairy calves are brought to full weight before slaughter.
davepleasebehave@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
a man who has never eaten veal.
hans@feddit.org 22 hours ago
hardly any dairy calves end up as veal.
this_jury_is_hung@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
It’s highly market-senstive what happens to them, but I have previously worked on dairy farms in NZ and AU, and in both countries, calves(except replacement heifers) that get raised at all are a rounding error, maybe a handful per farm that are kept for personal slaughter and consumption.
If the bobby-calf (aka veal) market is paying well enough, then they are shipped off for slaughter at ~4 days old. If the market doesnt pay well enough to justify 4 days of rearing costs, then they are killed immediately and sold for their skins.
hans@feddit.org 10 hours ago
i present the math below
hans@feddit.org 1 day ago
a dairy cows life span is like 5 years
toomanypancakes@crazypeople.online 22 hours ago
A cows natural life span is 20ish years. They’re kept perpetually pregnant for years until their bodies give out, then they’re slaughtered at around 5 years old.
hans@feddit.org 22 hours ago
cows don’t naturally live to 20 years. they can live that long if they are well fed and watered and protected from disease, predators, and the environment. that’s an artificial life span.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
ours were closer to twelve but go off the documentary you watched once
hans@feddit.org 20 hours ago
albertamilk.com/…/how-long-does-the-average-dairy…