this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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I don't understand why milk is avoided. You are not necessarily harming the animal.
Maybe not necessarily the dairy cow herself, but she needs to be pregnant about once per year so she doesn't stop producing milk. That means that the calves inevitably need to be slaughtered (as well as older dairy cows) or else the herd would keep growing year after year.
Not to mention the mothers are distressed that their babies have been taken away from them. It's heartbreaking to hear them screaming when they know another calf has be taken, and won't come back.
Exactly. If people reading this don't see the moral disconnect here, think back to how the US administration handled the southern border and the influx of immigrants a few years ago. Children were taken from families without any regard for keeping said families together. It's devastating no matter the species it happens to.
Never mind the practices that go into ensuring that they become pregnant.
I will happily drink any woman's milk if she's offering, but it's actually extremely weird that y'all steal cow milk.
I think it's extremely weird that you would happily drink any woman's milk.
But it is MUCH less weird than drinking bovine lactate and somatic cells.
I'm not a vegetarian, but I avoid lactose in general as my bowels get upset if I drink milk in excess. So it's either buttermilk or some vegan alternative.
Oat milk is pretty good. Has its own distinct taste tho, it tastes a bit like a hazelnut flavored milk drink. Almond and soy milk are pretty nasty tho.
I've gotten in so many heated debate on that one, as someone who grew up on a dairy farm. People see the gross factory farms in the US and get incredibly offended at me "lying" by claiming that plenty of farms are not like that, and it just comes down to ethical sourcing.
I'm not sure there is anything ethical about forcefully impregnating female cows for our gain.
Just think if we thought doing so was ethical for humans. Rape, the sex slave trade, etc. would be morally acceptable.
They're animals. Artificial insemination is no more or less rape than any other means of reproduction. Bulls don't exactly get consent, or give a shit if the cow is actively resisting for that matter. This is an instance where nature is more fucked up than what happens on farms, not less.
Since animals cannibalize others of their own species, does that mean humans should?
Artificial insemination != forceful insemination (rape).
The former requires consent that removes boundaries (as a result of conscious choice made by a couple that is incapable of reproducing - or not); the latter violates consent that destroys boundaries.
We can't communicate with animals directly so there little to no way we can ever ask for consent to do these things to animals. Any animal insemination is forceful insemination.
Cows can communicate between each other, meaning that there is a possibility that consent is given, if said concept is even comprehensible by cows.
Consent as a concept might not even be necessary for bovines, however. I'm no ethologist, but it appears that one of the main ways cows communicate that they're in heat is by emiting pheromones that bulls then cross-confirm with other signs of estrus like mounting (see Cow Talk namely Chapter 4). Outside of matings seasons, however, the source indicates that wild cows tend to separate themselves according to sex: males with males, and female with females/young. There isn't a tendency here for wild bulls to seek out heifers unless it's the right time of year and heifers communicate that they're looking for sexual interaction. This is a form of consent since some information is communicated indicating a desired behavior from the other party.
Contrast wild cattle with domesticated cattle and it's been shown that bulls tend to be put in isolation from heifers, and that primary introduction between the sexes results in isolated bulls exhibiting "excessive mounting (buller-steer syndrome)" where "injuries to the bull being ridden, decreased weight gain and even death" happen (see Social Behavior in Farm Animals, namely Chapter 5).
If anything, domestication leads to unnatural social patterns that can allow for even more suffering than in nature. Again, I'm not an ethologist so we would need to review the literature more.