Animals can be bad mothers
When pursued by a predator, kangaroos will jettison their pouch young behind them to be eaten instead. After all, they usually have a replacement embryo in diapause.
White tail deer will aggressively chase away nursing fawns if conditions aren’t ideal. They’re often hesitant to defend fawns from predators, resulting in high fawn mortality.
Many, many species will kill and eat their young under stress. It’s been reported in everything from rodents to dogs.
20-30% of Merino ewes will give birth and walk away. The breed is notoriously neglectful with their lambs.
Which brings us to dairy cows. Dairy cows were not selected with maternal instincts in mind. Even beef cows reject their calves from time to time, especially in the case of twins or weak calves.
I’ve seen cows lick their calves and walk away without looking back. I’ve seen /many/ cows kick calves that tried to nurse away. Some cows don’t even look at their calves at all. Every single cow I’ve seen calves immediately returns to their food bunk, eating and ruminating as if nothing happened.
In on case, I went to go get some vaccines for a newborn heifer, just to turn around and see that her mother was kicking the snot out of her and stomping on her. I was able to get her away safely (but terrified), and I’m just thankful her loving mom missed her head.
The “separating mothers from their calves is abuse” nonsense is purely based in emotion, not logic based on knowledge of cattle behavior. While raising calves on their mothers has its benefits, there are damn good reasons for separating the two from a welfare standpoint. Dairy cow maternal instinct is not as reliable as the humans who take over for the cow, and people need to understand that.
Um okay but some mother’s morn and cry for their calves for days to weeks, fact in this post but Ive heard Mama’s bellow and cry for weeks after being separated from their baby even after being given a new one. Some moms don’t care but a lot really fucking do and feel the pain of separation.
It is inaccurate to depict dairy cows of not mourning or missing their babies or saying that it’s humans who insert the emotion. I have heard mamas cry for their babies and that’s something you don’t forget and something that isn’t fabricated by the human emotion
I mean, most of my job is delivering calves and caring for freshly calved cows, I’ve seen 100s of deliveries and separations, and I can honest to god tell you I’ve never seen a cow show signs of distress for more than… 5 minutes after separation at most, and never after she’s moved out of the maternity stall.
So many times people assume cows are crying for their babies when they don’t really know what cows are bellowing for. Videos showing separations only show the first few minutes and the “crying for weeks” narrative is so far from my own experience that I really struggle to believe that it actually ever happens.
I still stand by the opinion that it’s humans inserting emotions. They hear a cow calling out and assume it’s because she’s been separated from her calf when there are hundreds of other reasons she could be calling. Again, I’ve been at the deliveries and separations of 100s of dairy cows from different farms, and I’ve never seen that kind of prolonged distress, so you have to understand my skepticism.
I think what @coralcoloreddream doesn’t realize is that cows are vocal animals that will bellow for a lot of reasons. This goes hand in hand with the argument that pigs scream because they are being abused or tortured. Animals vocalize, especially swine and cattle. Bellowing isn’t necessarily an indication of stress or pain.
I think it’s funny how y’all act like impregnating a cow over and over again until her legs break and she dies and taking each of her babies away to be slaughtered for veal isn’t cruel and unnecessary but carry on
Um? The average calving interval (time between calves) for feral highland cattle (not being raised intensively or interacting with humans) is 391 days. For dairy cows, the average is about 389. They’re pregnant the same amount of time whether they’re being farmed or not. Cows are naturally designed to have one calf a year.
Lameness is an environmental issue. Slippery floors, long walks, etc cause it. I’ve never been on a farm where cow comfort isn’t valued. Comfortable and happy cows make more milk.
Not every calf is raised for veal. Heifer calves will be dairy cows. Most bull calves even reach adulthood. Veal isn’t even necessarily cruel, and they’re often raised the same as other calves these days.
the magic of human omnivory is that everything people eat is technically unnecessary. we don’t need any one food, we have plenty of choices where to get our nutrients.
Cruelty happens, but most farmers genuinely care about the well being of their animals and have empathy for them. We care for cows and they give us food in return. Not every, or even many dairy cows live unhappy lives. If the animals are comfortable and cared for, and are largely free of hunger, thirst, pain, and fear it’s not cruel.
I’ve never personally farmed with dairy cows, but I was raised on a Black Angus farm and have helped care for hundreds of cows. A lot of times in my experience when delivering calves the mama will accept the baby, but sometimes does reject it and wonders off or gets violent, like OP said. But to say that humans are the ones putting emotion into it is wrong
I have heard mama cows cry for days/weeks after losing calves. I’ve seen mama cows refuse to eat or drink or even leave the spot where their baby died after losing them. So to say that we add the emotion is a crock of shit. Cows are very compassionate animals and very loving.
There was one time we were separating a mama cow from her baby to give it shots and she ran thru a steel fierce to get to us.
Every living thing experiences emotions, even if you refuse to acknowledge them
@dairyisntscary
Edit: I also wanted to add that I’ve seen the situation reversed, where a now being bottle fed calf is crying out day in and day out for their mother.
Beef cows and dairy cows are /worlds/ apart when it comes to maternal instinct. Beef cows have been bred to be good, involved mothers, dairy cows have not. Of course Anguses are good and protective mothers, they’re beef cows. It makes so much difference.
Dairy cows don’t care nearly as much. They do not have the genes beef cows have that leads to increased mothering behavior. People /are/ projecting emotions on /dairy/ cows. I still have yet to see a dairy cow that actually seems invested in her calf, because a crazy protective mother cow will not be kept for long on a dairy operation, she would be quickly culled, and those genes wouldn’t be passed.
I’m not saying cows lack emotions. They obviously do. It’s just that dairy cows are not attentive mothers, as they were never meant to be.
this is super well put. thanks @dairyisntscary
