5 ms·

I don't disagree that this is the case, the point I was trying to make is that keeping animals like this is not optimal.

bunderbunder 8y ago
It's necessary (or at least standard practice) in a lot of dairy farming regions. Consuming lots of dairy is typically a high-latitude thing. You could only have dairy farms in places that don't have a winter, but that would be pushing things even further toward the whole "put all the cattle in Californian factory farms and then burn lots and lots of oil to ship it around in trucks" thing, which is arguably even less optimal.
- wavefunction 8y ago
  Or we could just resurrect older breeds descended from Aurochs that had shaggy coats. Or we could encourage the consumption of traditional dairy products in those regions like reindeer or yak-based dairies. Factory farming in NL versus California is probably pretty similar. California's not really a great place for ranching in the first place though, better to just do that in a place like Vermont with a lot more water.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    I suspect that even if you could leave your herd out in the snow all winter, a detailed analysis would determine that bringing them into the barn to keep them warmer and feeding them hay for the winter yields more milk per acre. That would, in turn, imply things like a lower carbon footprint and less damage to already stressed ecosystems. It's kind of like burning wood to heat your house: It may be traditional, but that doesn't necessarily make it better. Realistically, the only reason all sorts of traditional practices were sustainable way back when was that the human population used to be a fraction of what it is now.
  - kortilla 8y ago
    Appeal to nature doesn’t imply that it’s the optimal thing to do.
    - retsibsi 8y ago
      > Appeal to nature doesn’t imply that it’s the optimal thing to do. It doesn't, but it's not meaningless either. It can be a useful heuristic, for example when trying to judge what conditions are better for the animals involved. Nature sucks in various ways, but 'unnatural' conditions that the animal is not adapted to living in often do cause more mental and physical distress.
Swizec 8y ago
My great grandma used to have cows on her we-do-everything farm. I’m told they prefered staying in the barn when it was -10celsius and covered in half a meter of snow outside. The barn was nice and warm. They’d also come home from pastures at night. That’s where the tastier nutrient dense food was.

bunderbunder 8y ago

It's necessary (or at least standard practice) in a lot of dairy farming regions. Consuming lots of dairy is typically a high-latitude thing. You could only have dairy farms in places that don't have a winter, but that would be pushing things even further toward the whole "put all the cattle in Californian factory farms and then burn lots and lots of oil to ship it around in trucks" thing, which is arguably even less optimal.

wavefunction 8y ago
Or we could just resurrect older breeds descended from Aurochs that had shaggy coats. Or we could encourage the consumption of traditional dairy products in those regions like reindeer or yak-based dairies. Factory farming in NL versus California is probably pretty similar. California's not really a great place for ranching in the first place though, better to just do that in a place like Vermont with a lot more water.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  I suspect that even if you could leave your herd out in the snow all winter, a detailed analysis would determine that bringing them into the barn to keep them warmer and feeding them hay for the winter yields more milk per acre. That would, in turn, imply things like a lower carbon footprint and less damage to already stressed ecosystems. It's kind of like burning wood to heat your house: It may be traditional, but that doesn't necessarily make it better. Realistically, the only reason all sorts of traditional practices were sustainable way back when was that the human population used to be a fraction of what it is now.
- kortilla 8y ago
  Appeal to nature doesn’t imply that it’s the optimal thing to do.
  - retsibsi 8y ago
    > Appeal to nature doesn’t imply that it’s the optimal thing to do. It doesn't, but it's not meaningless either. It can be a useful heuristic, for example when trying to judge what conditions are better for the animals involved. Nature sucks in various ways, but 'unnatural' conditions that the animal is not adapted to living in often do cause more mental and physical distress.

Swizec 8y ago

My great grandma used to have cows on her we-do-everything farm. I’m told they prefered staying in the barn when it was -10celsius and covered in half a meter of snow outside. The barn was nice and warm. They’d also come home from pastures at night. That’s where the tastier nutrient dense food was.