Dairy cows make their misery expensive (but their calves can’t) – Aceso Under Glass

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How much do cows suffer in the production of milk? I can’t answer that; understanding animal experience is hard. But I can at least provide some facts about the conditions dairy cows live in, which might be useful to you in making your own assessment. My biggest conclusion is that cows made better choices than chickens by making their misery financially costly to farmers.

Life Cycle

The life of a dairy cow starts as a calf. She is typically separated from her mother a few hours to a few days after birth and, to reduce disease risk, held in isolation. Cutting edge farms will sometimes house calves in pairs. This isolation is clearly stressful for a baby herd mammal and her mother, but I didn’t find any quantification of that stress that I trusted.

Calves will be bottlefed until weaning at 6-8 weeks (4-6 months earlier than beef calves). After weaning and vaccinations they can be introduced into a herd. At large farms (where most cows live), they will move in and out of different herds through their lifecycle. This is more stressful than being embedded with your friends for life, but again, I found no trustworthy quantification.

Heifers (unbred dairy cows) are first bred at 12-15 months, and calve 9 months later. After this, they will be on a ~yearly cycle of pregnancy, birth, and lactation (they will lactate through most of pregnancy). They will typically have 3 pregnancies before their milk production decreases and they are killed. An advantage cows have that egg chickens lack is that stress immediately and measurably decreases their economic productivity. This makes Cow Comfort big business, although if we can’t solve the sadist problem in nursing homes I don’t see how we can assume it’s solved in cows.

On average, ⅓ of dairy calves will go on to be dairy cows (herd size is constant or slightly shrinking in America despite increased demand, because productivity is increasing faster). ~2% will be raised for veal, some unknown percentage will be killed immediately, and most will be raised to be slaughtered for meat as adults. Early childhood stress probably hurts future meat cattle’s economic productivity as well, but because they switch farms while young, the farm raising them after birth has neither knowledge nor the incentive to minimize their stress.

How much time do dairy cows spend outside?

My guess is that cows feel happiest in open pastures surrounded by their friends and sunshine and fresh grass. My judgement is already suspect, because one study showed cows prefer twilight to bright sunshine. But the same study showed they did really like to go outside, so let’s continue on that assumption.

It’s important to note that outside does not necessarily mean idyllic pasture. It can also mean a concrete exercise yard or feedlot. And no modern American dairy cow lives on grass alone, even if they live on a pasture. Their staggering milk production requires more calories than they could possibly get through grass alone.

Conventionally raised cows are not required to spend any time outside. Organic-certified cows must have at least 120 days of pasture time per year and year-round outdoor access of some kind. In practice, California cows get considerably more time outside than Wisconsin or New York cows, for the obvious reason.

The most recent data said that only 5% of lactating cows (which is almost all of them- cows lactate through most of their pregnancies) have access to pasture to graze. That paper was published in 2017 but it might be using older data. Given the wording it’s possible that the cows are given access during times without grass growth, but why would farmers do that? A 2007 study found that only 13% of cows had no outdoor access at all, and half had access to a pasture at least some of the time. So it looks like outdoor access is getting worse

By humaneness standard

You can buy milk with little stickers printed on it advertising a humaneness standard. What do these tell you about the cows’ outdoor life?

American Humane Certified: does not require outdoor access of any kind for cows

Certified Humane: cows must have access to outdoors, but not necessarily pasture.

Organic: cows must graze pasture throughout the grazing season for their geographic location, derive at least 30% of dry matter intake from pasture, for a minimum of 120 days per year. I consider organic kind of bullshit, so I was surprised that it was such a strong demand for dairy cows.

Global Animal Partnership 5-step

Step 4+: on pasture >=120 days/year

Step 5+: continuous pasture

Animal Welfare Approved / A Greener World: requires continuous pasture living for cows except during actual fires. Emergencies exceeding 28 days require some sort of plan. I was unable to find any drinking milk with this label in the bay area, but there are a few stores with AWA cheese.

Strauss Farms claims to meet organic standards...