Animal Welfare

Dairies are an important part of our nation’s food supply. They provide us and our children with healthy nutritious milk and cheese and other dairy products. But dairies don’t just produce dairy products, they also produce beef. Here are a few facts that you might not know about that beef.

To produce a consistent supply of milk, a dairy cow must have a calf once a year. But very few dairy calves actually become dairy cows. Since a dairy cow only needs to produce one female calf to replace herself in the herd, all of her other calves are used to produce meat. The problem is that a purebred dairy calf, (usually a Holstein or Jersey) doesn’t have much meat on it. Therefore, a purebred dairy calf isn’t worth very much when it comes to meat. Cattle raised for beef like Angus, Hereford, Charolais, etc. look a lot different than dairy cows. Beef cattle are beefy, but dairy cows are thin because they are built for producing milk. That’s why dairymen breed their dairy cows to a beef bull so that they can sell the calf for beef.

But dairies grow their calves in an entirely different way than how ranchers grow their calves. Because a dairy cow’s milk is produced to be sold, she never nurses her own calf. In fact, as soon as the calf is born, it’s taken from its mother. It’s put in a tiny 4-foot by 8-foot crate, and it stays in that stall until it’s approximately six months old.

It never leaves this tiny crate. It never gets out to roam around outside. It never gets to graze in a field of grass. Cows and calves are social animals. They like being together. But when a calf is raised in a crate, they are isolated. They are implanted with growth hormones and fed a ration of milk from a bottle or a bucket, and given a consistent diet of antibiotics, so they don’t get sick. Contrast that with a cattle ranch, where calves roam outside in green pastures growing up with their mothers. Calves like to romp around and play with other calves out in the open in a healthy atmosphere where they don’t need antibiotics to stay healthy.

In a normal ranch setting, calves are very playful. They like to run free where they can romp around and frolic with each other. When a dairy calf is raised in a crate, it never gets out to play. As any rancher knows, if he keeps a calf in a barn or a pen for even a few hours and then turns the calf outside, it will be so happy for its freedom that it will run and jump and frolic. For example, these calves were kept in a barn for just a short time and then turned outside. Whenever a calf is kept confined for a long period of time it almost always celebrates its freedom when it’s turned loose.

That even applies to full-grown cows, if you keep them in a barn for a while and then turn them loose, they will do the same! Here’s a video of a farmer that kept his cows in for the winter and then turned them outside. You can tell how happy they are for their freedom. Cows don’t normally behave like this. But if you keep them confined for a period, they will frolic like this because they are so happy for their freedom. Dairy calves that are raised in crates never even get a single day to go play outside. Nor do they ever get to taste a single blade of grass. Not even one mouthful! Not ever—in their entire life.

Once dairy calves reach six months old, they’re implanted with more growth hormones and moved to a feedlot where they continue to be fed a dry ration with lots of antibiotics to keep them from getting sick. In the feedlot, they still never get to taste a single blade of green grass or ever have the feeling of running free. These cattle are harvested at about 18 months of age.

Over 7 million half-Angus/half-Holstein calves are raised in this manner every year and sold to grocery stores throughout America. It’s an economic model that produces bigger profits and it works for the dairy farmers. But…perhaps…it doesn’t work that well for the calf that has to go through that experience.

Only dairies use crates to raise their calves. American ranchers never raise their calves in crates. However, when you purchase beef in a grocery store or eat beef in a restaurant, you simply don’t know whether your beef came from a ranch or from a dairy. Consumers who do not want beef raised with hormones and antibiotics and who are concerned about humane handling should seek beef that has been source verified. In other words, it pays to know where your beef comes from. There are several ranches and beef processors in America who offer source verification and who guarantee that their calves were pasture raised and have never been kept in crates.