Ethical treatment of dairy animals in Ireland

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

EDIT: Looked it up, more dairy cows are killed every year here than beef cows. Recent enough figures.
And male dairy calves are castrated and fattened for beef.

Where did you get the info?

I wish there were Irish books written about veganism with all the facts and stats from here. While not agreeing with animal comodification is enough of a reason for me to not eat animal products, it would be nice to have a good picture of how things are here in one neat text. I only have American books written on the subject.

Wow, that's very good information here.

I stopped drinking milk a while ago and by accident I had a coffee latte the other day.
I felt very bad afterwards (stomach) and tested this a few times. I think after not drinking milk for a few months, Im simply not used to it anymore and therefore I'm lactose intolerant i'd say.

this shows me again, that milk is not healthy, and this is a good reason for me to leave milk out of my live.

however, I was living besides a farmer for a couple of years and he took (surprisingly) good care of his cows.
Still the calves had to be separated and seeing how sensitive and intelligent cows are, this was not cool.


I have to ask about the vegetarian cheese now:
ive never heard of such a thing, would this apply to "usual" cheese you buy in the supermarket?
I rarely eat cheese but that would be interesting to know, never knew cheese can be non-vegetarian :O

and would they clearly state if it's vegetarian or not or is it some weird name/description?

in case I go for cheese at farmers markets, I guess I would ask them directly and they should be able to tell?

Is Parmesan never vegetarian?

Wow, thank you HenryPorter. I've taken note of that stuff.

freethink3r wrote: »

Wow, thank you HenryPorter. I've taken note of that stuff.

No problem - hope it's of some help.

Ok I've been meaning to reply to this for a while because you raise a very important issue, something that is wildly misunderstood here on boards and Ireland as a whole. The rest of the world too ofc but let's just focus on Ireland for now.

Let me first say I grew up on a farm in Ireland, a dairy farm and in a farming community with many other farms in the area, an egg factory beside me, turkey farms nearby and an AI (artificial insemination) station over the road. Even this did not make me less ignorant to practices surrounding farming in Ireland. It was not until I was about 18 that I started to transition into vegetarianism, later into veganism. Such is the power of social conditioning! There is a lot going on that even farmers themselves aren't aware of and don't witness first-hand, the nasty truth of the meat and dairy industry is well hidden, people don't question it because it's accepted as normal.

Yes, dairy farming does have better practices in Ireland compared with the states and elsewhere. On our own farm and most irish farms, cows are kept outside, they are not over-milked to the point where their udders become grossly malformed like you will see in pictures from american farms. But they are still over-milked, they are milked every morning and night. I have seen first-hand lame cows that are just left to die a slow painful death, with farmers often not seeking veterinary care to save on expenses. I did not understand why these cows were lame at the time but I have witnessed the cruelty of my own family, leaving these lame cows to rot and die and often leaving their dead carcasses on the land around other animals for birds to then come along and pluck out their eyes. They are not disposed of properly, again saving on expenses and risking the spread of disease and water contamination. Cows have a much better life in Ireland but it is far, far from perfect.

Rape

Dairy cows are no different than us, they can only produce milk during and after pregnancy. While some farms keep a bull for this, most often pregnancy is forced through artificial insemination. This is a crude practice which involves shoving a rod into the cows cervix whilst the cow is locked in a crate. Cows are then continually impregnated over their life-span to ensure milk production. This report says that the majority of cows in the UK are impregnated through artificial insemination, so I'd imagine it's the same here. This video shows how artificial insemination in Ireland is carried out but from my own knowledge living nearby an AI station they make it look a lot prettier here than it really is.

Calves

In my experience calves are kept with their mothers longer in Ireland, but not much longer, from a few days to a few weeks. Then they are stolen away, a traumatic experience in itself for both mother and calf. If the calves are female, they will share the cruel short life of their mother. If they're male, they're either raised for beef depending on their type, raised for veal, the cruelty of which I think is well understood, or they are just culled.

Spent cows

When dairy cows can no longer produce milk, they are sent for slaughter. I'm afraid there's no peaceful dying here. Dairy cows should live for 25years but in reality only live for 4/5, I'd imagine a bit longer in Ireland. It's hard to find figures on these things. Slaughter is a whole discussion in itself from poor transport conditions, to the conditions at the slaughter house to the manner in which they are killed. I won't go into that here.

Other issues

De-horning, tagging, tail-docking, "squeezing", all cruel painful procedures carried out without anaesthetic.

Tail-docking - removal of the cows tail to save farmers the small annoyance of cows swishing their tails while being milked. A less common practice, this was not carried on our farm but it was on a neighbours farm. Aside from the pain of the procedure itself, you must remember that animals like cows use their tails to prevent insects landing on them and feeding on them.

Tagging - basically cows having their ears pierced against their will, something I was told didn't hurt the cows, nonsense.

De-horning - removal of the horns, again something I was always told doesn't hurt cows, I even heard it compared to having your hair cut, total nonsense.

Squeezing - how can I put this..... a form of castration that involves crushing the cows balls with a giant nut-cracker-like device. This prevents them from turning into bulls.

I've seen first-hand many of these practices and actually helped my Dad do it too, manipulating the cows into crates who are ofc terrified and bellowing and trying to escape and reacting violently from the pain. I was just told it didn't hurt them, a lie I believed for a long time.


Eggs (briefly)

I lived beside an egg factory, many of my neighbours worked there, I was inside it only once and it's impossible to forget. Firstly the smell is absolutely overwhelming so you can only imagine the conditions inside. Also the noise, row upon row of chickens stacked high into tiny cages, barely bigger than the chickens themselves. I was only inside for probably a minute and it was overwhelming so you can imagine what that's like for the chickens.

male chicks

Male chicks are ground up alive! It was when I found out this I became vegan. This also happens in free-range egg production. How could I on the one hand not eat chicken but still consume eggs which is indirectly killing male chicks.


Humane slaughter and the ethical argument

So...... you made it! After all of that, you may still consider humane slaughter or more ethical farming practices, like you described in India. Actually Earthlings has some great insights about India, all is not what it seems, take a look. Growing up we got our milk directly from the tank, raw, unpasteurised milk, sometimes drinking it while it was still warm! All milk is full of blood and pus, that's what you're drinking! And when you consider the amount of drugs farmers pump into animals, that is not something you want to drink. Growing up in this way, sourcing milk directly from the tank, never having to buy milk and eating eggs laid by free chickens on the farm, it seemed like a natural lifestyle, it seemed ok, I didn't question, I didn't understand what truly went on. The truth is...... there is no such thing as humane slaughter, it's an oxymoron! No animal willingly goes to their slaughter. And in Ireland while driving around the countryside it may appear as though cows are free to roam and living this happy life before they die peacefully, that's just not the reality. I think this page says it better than me. But for me it's about realising we are all animals and to exploit animals in any way is wrong, regardless of their level of intelligence or their level of suffering. If you agree, then veganism is the only solution.


Further reading

The Dark Side of Dairy - a report on the UK dairy industry, it's less easy to find reports for Ireland but I would imagine it's similar to the UK, maybe slightly better.

This says that about 1.7 million cattle are slaughtered in Ireland every year - from a 2011 bovine statistics report.

http://www.adaptt.org/veganism.html - Gary Yourofsky's site, for more general reading click on "chicken, eggs and the free range scam", "cows", "dairy".

http://vegankit.com/

Wow thanks a lot for the information!

I was watching Prime Time (i know :P) on the rte player from the 28th April, about food harvest 2020.

http://www.rte.ie/player/nl/show/10277792/

It's up there for 5 more days if anyone's interested.

Apparently EU quota limits on dairy production will be abolished in about a year's time. This would lead to an explosion in the dairy and beef industry. There's plans for increase in the sector, but this is in conflict with our EU emissions targets. Dairy production is forecast to increase by 50% and beef by 30% in the next 5 years.

One guy said we are the 'best in Europe when it comes to emissions from livestock'. We may be, but agriculture also contributes to 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and this is actually way ahead of our European neighbours!

Right now Ireland has an EU target to produce 20% less emissions. But with such an increase in the dairy and beef industry forecast, there is total contradiction here from the government. The agriculture industry has suggested some ways to lower emissions;

-tightening up nutrient deficiency on farms
-altering the animals diet
-extending the grazing season
-increase in planting of forestry

BUT while also increasing dairy and beef production??? The minister for agriculture actually reckons we can increase volume while lowering emissions. Did he even take math in school?

But he also had some other suggestions, firstly to improve efficiency in the meat and dairy production, I don't know how he plans to have around 400,000 extra cows but managing their diet efficiently enough that they are somehow producing less emissions. His other suggestion was killing animals at an earlier age, 'so they're not producing emission for longer'. I see

Oh but there's other good news, someone on the show assures us there is a system in place where we can buy allowances from other member states who overachieved on their targets. I'm not sure what that's doing for climate change :P

blatantrereg wrote: »

I think this is not necessarily a bad thing. Obviously as a vegetarian I have issues with the beef industry as a whole, and I agree with most of the reasons why it would be better if there were no large scale dairy operations in the world too. However I don't think that removing the cap on Ireland's production is going to effect that. I think reducing demand is what will effect that - I.e. people consuming little or no dairy products.

There are positives too, if you think, as I do, that Irish people's consumption of meat and dairy isn't going to change as a result of this. There would be more locally sourced produce, resulting in lower imports, which means less emissions on a global scale. There is consensus here that, regardless of your opinion of Irish animal farming practices, they are a lot better than the vast majority around the world.

Really it's just a question of whether meat and dairy consumption would increase as a result. I think it won't and that what increases here will decrease elsewhere. I could be wrong of course.

You seem to be distancing supply and demand though. Supply and demand are not mutually exclusive. I know you must know that we, vegetarians and vegans, seek to alter the supply by changing our demands, so by consuming no/less meat/dairy/egg products, less animal products will be produced, less animals harmed. You know this, and I agree demand is key here. There are more and more people becoming vegetarian and vegan, we know this too, 6% of Ireland is vegetarian now. So the demand has been changing but how does the supply look? Are less animals being killed as a result, because surely that's the point.

So it's not the easiest evaluating the 'supply'. But looking back to the bord bia link.....

Ireland 2013
- 2% increase in number of cattle
- 2% increase in number of sheep
- 1% decrease in pigs
- dairy?

Some increases there, some decreases, nothing too significant.

But what about exports? We are exporting more and more meat and dairy produce as well as live animals.

-2013 total dairy and ingredients exports increased by an estimated 15%

Exports are really concerning because it's not just the Irish that are part of the demand for Ireland's supply of meat/dairy. So it isn't logical to only be concerned about Irish people's consumption of meat/dairy and whether that will change as a result of growing production numbers. I don't know if it will or not, most likely exports will increase dramatically though. The plans are to increase dairy production by 50% and beef by 30%, so they are planning for increased herd numbers once the EU cap is lifted. Whether Irish people are eating those extra cows or whether some other country is, someone is. It's like the way someone further up the page mentioned the US. We know the US is worse, but just because Ireland is better we shouldn't be concerned about the US? If we are doing this for ethical/moral reasons, or for animals or for concerns about the environment....... we should 100% be concerned about the US. They have the biggest influence after all, they're killing the most animals, they alone consume about 20 percent of all animals slaughtered for food, even though it contains less than five percent of the world's population. China is getting worse and worse. I would hope that our EU target for reduced emissions would override these plans for increased production, but from listening to the Minister for Agriculture on that show, he is set on increasing numbers, he wants to slaughter animals younger, that would only add to production numbers. So I'm really hoping enough people can make the right choices in the supermarket so we can really affect the demand and prevent things getting worse, we don't seem to be having much of an impact right now.

And I wouldn't say Irish farming practices are a lot better than the rest of the world. Beef/dairy has better practices, since our cows are grass-fed. But pig farming in Ireland is certainly nothing to boast about, same with chickens, eggs. And I don't think that just because some of our practices are better, that we don't need to be concerned about other countries and increasing irish exports. Unless you're just biased towards Irish people or Irish animals. I'm just concerned about the extra 400,000 cows that have been promised.

betsie wrote: »

just to point out that both Tail Docking of cows and the disposal of dead animals on farmland are both Illegal in Ireland.

No one is condoning anything illegal here, of all places in the veggie & vegan forum!