| Pain on Your Plate |
| Part VIII -- Cows on Factory Farms |
The average lifespan of a cow is 25 years. But "dairy" cows seldom live past their fourth birthday
due to the stress of the modern dairy factory where they are kept continually pregnant
and their babies are stolen from them shortly after birth.
|
Normally a very placid animal, cows on the factory farm must be given tranquilizers
because the regime of the modern dairy makes them so tense and hyperactive.
They are also injected with hormones to promote milk production. And their teats are
dipped in chemicals to reduce inflammation. You drink all of this in with your
glass of milk, and increase your chances of cancer thereby.
|
The milk you drink was originally intended to be passed from a mother to her baby.
When you drink milk or eat cheese you are stealing milk out of the mouth of a baby,
and interfering with the natural relationship between a mother and her baby.
Cows have a very strong maternal instinct and have been known to break down
stalls in an effort to get to their babies.
|
What makes it worse is what happens to those babies once they've been separated from their mothers (so that we
can drink the milk intended for them.)
|
This calf was taken from his mother a day or two after birth -- and long before he was weaned.
|
He was chained here, inside this small crate, to restrict his movements and render him anemic.
He will spend his entire shortened miserable life here...
|
...never seeing the light of day...
|
...until he makes his fatal journey to the slaughterhouse.
Who has done this horrible thing?
Has some depraved monster or lunatic with a penchant for torture chained him here?
No.
|
In a few short months the calf's eyes will witness this scene -- reminiscent of
Dante's Inferno.
|
He will witness it, and then it will happen to him.
|
What sort of demons stoke these fires of hell...
|
...and keep these scenes repeating millions of times a day?
Do bloodthirsty madmen run such an operation?
Again, the answer is no.
|
