Any dairy farmers please?

[RedRedWhiney]

I'm pescitarian.

Have been slowly consuming less dairy. This to me seems so horrific to immediately stop consuming any dairy.

However, Google search shows the extremems of the debate, so I would really value the input of dairy farmers

Milking a cow is most definitely NOT painful or traumatic, nor does it make them bleed, neither are they fed antibiotics, nor do they have a miserable existence

Dairy cows often don't show much interest in the calves, they are pretty crap mothers

Methane is a naturally occurring gas, it breaks down and causes no problems, carbon, from fossil fuel is a different matter, however the grass that grows to feed the cows consumes vast amounts of carbon dioxide and emmits lots of oxygen

We milk a small herd. The cows go into the parlour 3 or 4 days post calving. As long as their tummies are full calves are content. Not many of our cows seem worried about being separated from their calfs. Some of them we leave to rear their calf. We castrate the bull calves and rear them on grass until they are big enough to go for meat. They can be kept for up to 30 months before the processors start to reduce their worth. The heifers are kept as replacements. Our cows live outside for most of the year. In the cold, wet weather they are more than happy to stay inside. Our antibiotic use is minimal and absolutely no antibiotic enters the food chain. There are very strict rules and penalties for that. We do not artificially inseminate, our cows run with bulls. Our milk goes to make chocolate crumb. We are obligated by our contract to use regenerative farming practices and are part of a programme to increase our soil health to aid carbon sequestration. I was a vegetarian for or over a decade and a vegan for part of that time. The grim reality is that where there is life there is death be it a culled cow or worm torn in half by a plough. We can only try our best to be good custodians of our herds and of nature.
There are some cow with calf dairies around the country.

Hiya

Firstly thank you for asking dairy farmers. Sadly it looks like you have had lots of replies from People who get their information from vegan websites which are incorrect.

No what you have shared isn't factual. Bull calves are not shot at birth. Yes they used to be 30 years ago. We now don't shoot calves. We don't want to, we aren't allowed to. They are reared for meat.

Yes on many dairy farms calves are removed at a young age. However this is to protect calves, ensure they get the correct amount of colostrum and look after them correctly. Many dairy cows are rubbish mums, don't feed their calves properly and would happily leave them to die in a hedge.

Cows aren't constantly pregnant and milking. They have breaks.

They are not worn out by 5 years old at all! Most herds have cows up to (and over) 10 years old. Most cows don't survive until 25 in the wild.

Artificial insemination is done because using bulls can be dangerous for both the farmer and the cows. The damage caused to cows can be horrific. We also used sexed semen to reduce the number of males born. AI is nothing like rape. Its done then the cow is bulling and receptive to being mated. They will happily stand and let you do it- they want to get in calf.

If in the wild they would be mated a lot earlier then we Ai them and would not have any break between pregnancies. Bulls crack on whenever they want.

No we no longer breed for milk volume. Most milk contracts are now about milk quality. Butterfat, protein etc are more important then extra litres.

Our cows are well looked after. They have great lives.... better then ours. Their health and welfare is monitored 24/7. Please message me if you have anymore questions as I might miss them on here.

You are very very wrong. None of what you have said is fact.

Thanks so much for this link. I've always been uncomfortable with the dairy industry and drink oat milk myself but still have dairy for the kids. I've found a farm not too far from our house using your link so I'll be making a trip up there and probably cancelling my milk man soon. Thanks!

After weaning nobody needs to drink milk.
However that still leaves other dairy products especially butter and cheese which I would struggle to give up.
Apparently people who eat dairy products smell sour to those that don’t. Not sure if that’s true.

I spent a lot of time on dairy farms as a kid.

PPs are correct about many dairy cows making lousy mothers. A lot of farmers actually look for cows that don't have strong maternal instincts.

A lot of dairy cows live to 10 or more. It is expensive to raise a cow to adult hood, so no one wants a short lived cow.

Cows only produce milk well when they are happy, comfortable, and well fed. It's in the farmer's interest to make sure the cows are happy.

I'm not saying there aren't issues, but that infogram is pretty crap.

This has been a fascinating thread, thanks

Actually, we have evolved to drink it. Humans are the only mammal that can still digest milk as adults. The sugar in milk needs a specific enzyme (lactase) to break it down. Other mammals only make this enzyme when they are babies. Humans- especially humans whose ancestors lived alongside cattle - continue to produce this enzyme as adults.

Op it would be worth your while finding your nearest proper dairy farm or raw milk supplier and asking. Every herd is different but IME this infographic is hugely inaccurate - I suspect possibly American? We certainly didn't cull at 5/6 years (up to that age they were often bloody useless mothers!). AI is one way (insemination) but many farmers still prefer to run the bull with the herd and good bulls will pass around good farmers to keep diversity in the herds. Yes cows are often taken early - for many reasons including the crap mothers! The herd are milked and some of that milk goes to their calves, supplemented by additional nutrition, while the rest goes for dairy produce. Of course it's not without its faults, but non-dairy alternatives are nowhere near as non-harm as they would like you to believe

I live on a dairy farm (we're not farmers, though, and I dont know much about it all) and I can tell you this farm doesn't shoot male calves at birth! We have a field full of them from Spring till the onset of winter. They're proper softies, hiding from rain under trees! I imagine they're then sold on to be raised for beef or breeding.

The female cows graze outside for a huge chunk of the year and are brought under cover for the coldest months.

I know our farmer cares a great deal for his animals, as do all our near neighbours. It seems to me that graphic is a bit extreme. The anti-dairy lobby want to frighten and guilt you in to not consuming the product. The truth is unlikely to be anywhere near as extreme.

Carbon dioxide is also naturally occurring. It doesn’t make it safe.

”Methane is the primary contributor to the formation of ground-level ozone, a hazardous air pollutant and greenhouse gas, exposure to which causes 1 million premature deaths every year. Methane is also a powerful greenhouse gas. Over a 20-year period, it is 80 times more potent at warming than carbon dioxide.”

www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/methane-emissions-are-driving-climate-change-heres-how-reduce-them

Love @rachmultiplemum 's reply - such a sane voice. A lot of internet debate can be so polarising.

Personally, if I can alter a recipe or choose a different option that means I don't bother a cow or chicken, I will do it. So I'll use oil instead of butter, or soy/oat milk instead of dairy milk, and tofu/flaxseed/aquafaba instead of eggs. Cakes, quiches, mayo, pastry, pancakes, biscuits, white sauce and bread (including soda bread) are all easily veganisable, and often taste really similar to the non-vegan version (sometimes better even).

Having said that, despite many attempts I can't make good vegan yorkshire puddings - so I go non-vegan with those. I don't make my children vegan or veggie because I don't want to stress them out with restrictions. And I'll happily eat a veggie (but not vegan) option round a friend's or at a restaurant (if vegan isn't on offer). I totally eat honey.

There's an infographic that really motivated me to reduce animal product consumption. It shows the different amounts of land devoted to each type of thing. I just imagine all the land devoted to animals, or growing food for animals being given to nature instead - Britain would've originally been covered in forests, on the west on the country these would've been rainforests. Imagine how beautiful that would be.

(I've attached the infographic, but the original article it's from is here: www.carbonbrief.org/qa-will-englands-national-food-strategy-help-tackle-climate-change/)

That's not accurate either. Sorry. A lot of the cereal which animals consume isn't grown for the animals. Its the by product of what's grown for humans or the stuff that hasn't reached human grade quality.

We need food security in the UK and we won't get that with arable alone

Am I misunderstanding the infographic? Is it trying to claim that the UK is only built on in an area equivalent to the size of Wales?

It's surprising but according to this only 10.5% of the UK is "built up" but I suppose it depends on what the definition of that is.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/land-use-in-england-2022/land-use-statistics-england-2022#fn:2

Thank you to all those farmers who have taken the time to post on here.. You're a credit to farming. We need to support our farmers in this country, be they livestock as well as arable. If we don't, produce will simply be imported instead, whether you like it or not and that does nothing to improve animals welfare and practices.

Yep, only 10% ish is built up. Very weird but true. If you picture yourself on a long journey, by train or car and look out of the window mostly it'll just be field, field, field, field. If you were somewhere a bit more hilly, like the Lake District that would be all sheep, sheep, sheep.

I was shocked by how little land we use for fruit and veg and orchards. They're similar to golf courses!

I think the media tends to look at extreme examples of dairy farming. Much of it is referencing US systems rather than the more common small UK dairy herds and poor welfare cases are reported and dealt with and so much of the hype about methane is inaccurate as it is also based on intensive US systems.

If you have welfare concerns, then seek out a small local producer who has their herd welfare as a priority. There are plenty around. I am not a dairy farmer but have had my own house cow. We left the calf with its mother most of the time (taking it away for a few hours a day as it got older so mum could have a rest) and just took the amount of milk we needed - the cow produced far more milk than was needed for either us or its calf.

Unfortunately huge modern dairy farms tend to look for profit first. However, their welfare standards are usually very high and the cows don't suffer unduly. All the dairy farmers I know love their cows and treat them with respect. We expect all animals to conform to our wishes - anyone with a dog will have taken it away from its mother at some stage and confined the dog to a home rather than letting it run free and then they are pampered, taken to dog shows etc. Cows in this country are no different to pets - they are confined to fields and milked which is not normally the painful process that someone has suggested. The anti brigade will always be able to find the sad rare cases to further their cause but they are rare and should be reported.

@Nurse2022

Northern Europeans of Northern European ancestry have, quite literally, evolved to consume cows milk. This is not seen anywhere else on the planet.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/famine-and-diseases-likely-drove-europeans-ability-to-digest-milk-180980483/

Carbon dioxide is perfectly safe, we breathe in a significant amount of it, we just can't use it
As for methane, from cattle, 100, or even 1000 years ago there were more bovines than there is now, but no global warming or climate change
Humans were not burning vast amounts of fossil fuel back then either

Technically that's adults, right? Because even kids in Japan have cow's milk, and lactose free cow's milk is a modern popular drink for adults in far East.

Don't many Indian sub-continent ppl consume cow milk products as adults.

My family were/are farmers. It’s brutal. I’m vegan as are most of my cousins who also grew up around it.