Former Dairy Farmer Speaks Out

by A. Brown (Originally published in the January/February 2007 issue of Canada EarthSaver)

The truth about dairy farms is not what we are often led to believe. I sometimes read or hear animal welfare activists referring to dairy farms as "hell-holes" of suffering and cruelty. Images of cows chained to a tie-stall for life, never seeing the light of day, are conjured to illustrate the sad and unethical practices involved in the production of the carton of milk you see on the grocery store shelf.

As someone who grew up on a dairy farm, I find it disconcerting when these conditions are purported to be common among dairy farms these days. While I have no doubt that such farms exist, my experience of 15 years on a dairy farm tells a different story. Our family dairy started in 1977, with a herd of 35 milking cows. This was considered slightly smaller than average; at that time the average size of a dairy herd in Canada was 40 cows. Now, it is 65. The cows had free stalls (they could enter and exit as they wished) which were cleaned every day, and during the warm season they also had the run of a green pasture where they spent most of the day. During the very cold winter nights (-30 on occasion!) their barn was shut tight and the cows' body heat, with the insulation of the hay stored above their ceiling, kept them quite warm.

Cows are wonderful creatures, each with a unique personality. We could often recognize them from across the pasture, by their markings or by a distinctive gait. When one was sick she was carefully tended: sometimes we would cradle their heads in our arms in a sort of cow-human embrace, talking to them gently. They all had names. Certain cows had such affinity for human contact that they would get up and approach us from across the field to have their ears stroked or neck scratched. We loved them and they loved us back. As we came to know other farmers in the region, it became clear that one of the binding threads of commonality in the dairy farming community was the affection we felt for our cows, for their friendly faces and peaceful dispositions.

But that is not the whole story. Some facets of dairy farming are universal, and ethically unsound: The cows are artificially inseminated about once a year, beginning at 15 months of age, and 283 days later they give birth to a calf. The calf stays with its mother for the first few days of its life and then is moved to the nursery barn, where it still drinks its mother's milk, but is fed by hand. Holsteins, the breed of cow found in most North American dairy farms, are a completely unnatural breed - they are "super-cows", genetically engineered to produce astonishing quantities of milk. Indeed they give many times more milk than their calf can drink. If the calf stays too long unsupervised with its mother it may drink too much, become sick, and die.

On our farm if a new calf was born female, it was raised in comfortable surroundings, grazing on pastures in the summer, until old enough to become pregnant, have a calf, and start milking. If, on the other hand, it was born male, it was kept a couple of weeks, until it was strong enough for a trip to the local auction, and then sold, usually to be bought and slaughtered for veal or beef.

The cows lived between 5-10 years, until some aspect of their health declined to the point that they could not conceive or could not produce milk. We then made the business decision to "ship" them, which meant a trip to the auction, and in most cases the slaughterhouse thereafter. We did not accompany them on this ride, but we knew full well what was in store for them.

Our animals did not suffer cruel or hellish conditions. But their lives were created, and ended, by a business decision. Even their genes were manipulated, from generation to generation, to optimize their efficiency as food-producing machines. These are the undeniable facts which apply to almost all farmed animals, and which form a solid and truthful foundation for a case against the exploitation of animals for food, regardless of the degree to which suffering is involved. My own choices not to continue the family dairy business, not to purchase dairy products at the grocery store, and indeed to advocate against their existence, are influenced not by the suffering of animals, since I know that a dairy farm can avoid this, but by the basic ethical problem of creating and destroying the lives of animals to feed a species that can easily survive on a plant-based diet.