Do Beef Cattle Stay With Their Moms
Animal agriculture has become i of the nearly controversial topics when information technology comes to food. Misinformation spreads like wildfire, and some may find information technology difficult to brand peace with eating fauna products without all of the facts.
I am a educatee at one of the almost "vegan friendly" campuses in the United states, according to the Princeton Review. Ironically, my school also has i of the top beast agriculture programs in the world. As a student studying beast agriculture and science at such a diverse university, I accept institute that 1 dairy question takes prevalence over all others: "Why exercise dairy farmers take the infant calves abroad from their mothers?"
Cows and calves are unlike than people
At that place are ii principal reasons why newborn dairy calves don't stay with their mothers: for their prophylactic and their health.
To answer this question, I'd like to remind y'all of the very real and often forgotten fact that cows and people are very different. Cows do not exist in a family unit unit like most people do. They are herd animals, meaning that they are well-nigh comfortable with other cows their age and their size – their herd-mates.
Cow instincts
When a cow has a baby, her herd instinct doesn't merely disappear so that she can fulfill the joys of motherhood. For the get-go hour or 2 after the dogie is built-in, in that location is a clear connexion between mom and baby. At my family's dairy subcontract, we keep the calf with its mother for this part. The mother licks off her baby, which aids in stimulation and getting the calf upward and moving.
However, after this initial flow, the moo-cow becomes increasingly anxious. She wants to be with her herd mates. Cows are non large fans of change, and I retrieve that we can all agree that giving nascency is a pretty big change.
This anxiety puts the calf in astringent danger. The cow ofttimes forgets well-nigh her calf. She walks or runs around, searching for her herd-mates and becomes extremely stressed. This can lead to the calf getting stepped, sat on, or injured in a diversity of ways.
Big mama, large problems
The boilerplate adult dairy cow weighs virtually 1,500 pounds, while calves are born weighing between 60-90 pounds. Speaking from my own experience, one time a dogie has been crushed or stepped on by her exponentially larger mother there is non much we every bit dairy farmers or even veterinarians can practise. It is heart wrenching and terrible to run into this happen, and far too regular when calves are left with their mothers for too long.
Allowed system health of calves
Here, nosotros circumvolve back to the fact that humans and cows are different, specially when it comes downward to biology. Homo mothers have a different type of placenta–the sac effectually the fetus– than bovines. And all of the complicated biological science of different placenta types boils downwards to this: when a human being infant is born, it already has an allowed organization with a semi developed immune response. It may be young, but it's there. When calves are born, they exercise not take an immune response to fight off infection.
This causes them to be at a much greater gamble for only most everything found outside of their mother'due south uterus. Their mother, nonetheless, will produce a special milk chosen colostrum that will (ideally) contain everything the calf needs to start it's allowed system. Simply, if the calf tries to nurse off of the cow it can be put at risk.
First, cows can sometimes not be the cleanest animals. As dairy farmers we can give them clean beds to lay in, clean their barns two to iii times a day and the listing goes on and on. The bottom line is, if they desire to lay in the dirtiest part of the befouled, they tin and they volition, and they often do. And if the infant calf nurses on a dirty teat before information technology'south fed colostrum, it could become very ill.
Second, if the calf is suckling, we have no fashion of knowing if the calf is really getting quality colostrum, or any colostrum at all. Sometimes cows get sick after giving nascence, and that could effect the quality of her colostrum.
Misconceptions near cow/calf separation
Finally, I want to address one of the most common misconceptions I hear about why the cow and dogie don't stay together: "if they don't separate them the calf will potable all of the milk and there won't be any for them to sell."
Calves get fed milk or milk-replacer. Milk-replacer is the equivalent of feeding your baby formula instead of chest milk – it's a personal choice. Cows naturally make more than milk than a dogie will drinkable on its own, so the choice to feed replacer versus milk is one made past each individual subcontract.
The best of both worlds
The bottom line is, things can and often exercise go incorrect when the calf is left with the cow. But dairy farmers are trained to be good intendance takers to their animals, including the babies. That means that we feed them from a bottle or bucket to brand sure they drink their milk and that it comes from a clean place. Nosotros are also able to monitor them very closely until their immune organization develops, and go along to exercise so as they go older.
The primary job of dairy farmers is to continue their cows healthy and well cared for. Cows that are not taken care of don't produce quality milk, so information technology really is in our all-time involvement to accept the cow's all-time interest in mind. Calves are the future of every dairy farmer's herd. So the same concept applies. Healthy calves grow up to exist healthy cows. Caring for the calves ourselves prevents them from existence injured by their mothers, and enables us to intendance for them in a controlled environment.
Calves and cows are separated because information technology is best for both their health and prophylactic. Information technology allows the cow to return to her happy identify – her herd – and gives the calf an opportunity to begin life its with its all-time hoof forrad! We, the farmers, can make sure the calf gets make clean and nutritious milk. Farmers can tell if the calf gets sick and give it the best care possible. We can practise all this while providing a high quality, all natural, almost perfect food.
Happy Dairy Calendar month!
All posts are the stance of the author and practice not necessarily represent the view of the Animal Ag Alliance .
Source: https://animalagalliance.org/separating-cows-and-calves-the-real-story/