6 ms·

Because you don't have to kill the animal to get it?

rsynnott 5y ago
To give milk, a cow has to be pregnant about once a year. So unless you want a geometric expansion of cows, you're going to be killing quite a lot of calves.
- crackercrews 5y ago
  Fair point. I guess the question is whether those calves would have been born/slaughtered for another reason (meat/leather), or whether milk demand is the only reason they exist.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    The latter, in modern farming. They'll be used for meat and leather and so on anyway, but as a byproduct; many calves will be killed within days of birth, in many countries on the farm rather than in a proper facility. In a hypothetical world where people didn't want meat or leather at all, but wanted current volumes of milk or anything like them, you'd still be producing and slaughtering a lot of calves.
- zackmorris 5y ago
  Thank you, I didn't know that so I learned something today! This seems like quite a ridiculous problem since surely hormones could induce lactation. I did a quick search and stumbled onto this from 1994 where they had cows that lactated without being pregnant: https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/milking-the-cattle-31995 https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/milking-the-cattle-31995 So milk without killing calves has been available for quite some time. This probably coincided with bans on hormones in milk though (which I was all for) that happened in the 90s and early 2000s maybe? But people were never given the full story. Maybe this could be a long-term sustainability/awareness project. Give cows hormones to simulate pregnancy and birth, then stop and sell the hormone-free milk for as many months as milking typically lasts.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    This is definitely something that has been and continues to be investigated, and if it was workable the industry would definitely be keen on it. As of now it’s experimental, tho.
    - zackmorris 5y ago
      I did a quick search and here are the first 10 results I found about using hormones like progesterone to mimic pregnancy (similarly to how birth control pills work) going back to at least 1975. From quickly skimming them, it looks like dairy cows on hormones cost about 1.5 times normal and the biggest side effect is hormones in the milk, which seems like something that could be bound to and removed by another compound. I haven't had time to read them all yet though, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong: https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(86)80570-7/pdf https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(86)... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030204734657 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002203020... https://www.publish.csiro.au/bi/pdf/bi9750183 https://www.publish.csiro.au/bi/pdf/bi9750183 https://www.scielo.br/j/rbz/a/qqDfVHKjYcRS7w43zpC5m4t/?lang=en https://www.scielo.br/j/rbz/a/qqDfVHKjYcRS7w43zpC5m4t/?lang=... https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(78)83794-1/fulltext https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(78)... https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/33721/final1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/33721/f... https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/opinion/111492644/artificially-inducing-cows-to-produce-milk-has-big-benefits-for-farmers-and-cows https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/opinion/111492644/a... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316230842_Artificial_Induction_of_Lactation_in_Bovines_Scope_and_Limitations https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316230842_Artificia... https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal-science/article/abs/milk-production-and-reproductive-performance-of-cows-induced-into-lactation-and-treated-with-bovine-somatotropin/7C0C1A531B226791956B552397F7EA94 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal-science/artic... https://www.pashudhanpraharee.com/protocols-for-artificial-induction-of-lactation-in-dairy-cattle/ https://www.pashudhanpraharee.com/protocols-for-artificial-i... If someone wanted to throw some investment money at a real problem, this is it. I would gladly pay the organic milk price (about twice normal) to know that the dairy products I'm buying don't have the collateral damage of killing countless calves.
seanwilson 5y ago
Dairy cows are killed for meat about 5 years into their 25 year lifespan when they stop producing as much milk. That's on top of being made pregnant (so they produce milk in the first place), having their offspring taken from them (so they don't take the milk) multiple times and male offspring being killed for veal. I don't see how it's any better than eating meat - you're still paying for animals to be killed for products that aren't essential.

To give milk, a cow has to be pregnant about once a year. So unless you want a geometric expansion of cows, you're going to be killing quite a lot of calves.

crackercrews 5y ago
Fair point. I guess the question is whether those calves would have been born/slaughtered for another reason (meat/leather), or whether milk demand is the only reason they exist.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  The latter, in modern farming. They'll be used for meat and leather and so on anyway, but as a byproduct; many calves will be killed within days of birth, in many countries on the farm rather than in a proper facility. In a hypothetical world where people didn't want meat or leather at all, but wanted current volumes of milk or anything like them, you'd still be producing and slaughtering a lot of calves.
zackmorris 5y ago
Thank you, I didn't know that so I learned something today! This seems like quite a ridiculous problem since surely hormones could induce lactation. I did a quick search and stumbled onto this from 1994 where they had cows that lactated without being pregnant: https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/milking-the-cattle-31995 https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/milking-the-cattle-31995 So milk without killing calves has been available for quite some time. This probably coincided with bans on hormones in milk though (which I was all for) that happened in the 90s and early 2000s maybe? But people were never given the full story. Maybe this could be a long-term sustainability/awareness project. Give cows hormones to simulate pregnancy and birth, then stop and sell the hormone-free milk for as many months as milking typically lasts.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  This is definitely something that has been and continues to be investigated, and if it was workable the industry would definitely be keen on it. As of now it’s experimental, tho.
  - zackmorris 5y ago
    I did a quick search and here are the first 10 results I found about using hormones like progesterone to mimic pregnancy (similarly to how birth control pills work) going back to at least 1975. From quickly skimming them, it looks like dairy cows on hormones cost about 1.5 times normal and the biggest side effect is hormones in the milk, which seems like something that could be bound to and removed by another compound. I haven't had time to read them all yet though, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong: https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(86)80570-7/pdf https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(86)... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030204734657 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002203020... https://www.publish.csiro.au/bi/pdf/bi9750183 https://www.publish.csiro.au/bi/pdf/bi9750183 https://www.scielo.br/j/rbz/a/qqDfVHKjYcRS7w43zpC5m4t/?lang=en https://www.scielo.br/j/rbz/a/qqDfVHKjYcRS7w43zpC5m4t/?lang=... https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(78)83794-1/fulltext https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(78)... https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/33721/final1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/33721/f... https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/opinion/111492644/artificially-inducing-cows-to-produce-milk-has-big-benefits-for-farmers-and-cows https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/opinion/111492644/a... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316230842_Artificial_Induction_of_Lactation_in_Bovines_Scope_and_Limitations https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316230842_Artificia... https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal-science/article/abs/milk-production-and-reproductive-performance-of-cows-induced-into-lactation-and-treated-with-bovine-somatotropin/7C0C1A531B226791956B552397F7EA94 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal-science/artic... https://www.pashudhanpraharee.com/protocols-for-artificial-induction-of-lactation-in-dairy-cattle/ https://www.pashudhanpraharee.com/protocols-for-artificial-i... If someone wanted to throw some investment money at a real problem, this is it. I would gladly pay the organic milk price (about twice normal) to know that the dairy products I'm buying don't have the collateral damage of killing countless calves.

seanwilson 5y ago

Dairy cows are killed for meat about 5 years into their 25 year lifespan when they stop producing as much milk. That's on top of being made pregnant (so they produce milk in the first place), having their offspring taken from them (so they don't take the milk) multiple times and male offspring being killed for veal. I don't see how it's any better than eating meat - you're still paying for animals to be killed for products that aren't essential.