A cow in a 200-strong dairy herd on a farm in England didn’t feel like getting up to be milked one morning.  A farmhand tried to coax her up, knowing that she was faking being asleep.  It’s not surprising that the cow didn’t want to get up, since being a dairy cow is a miserable experience.  This particular cow had the name of Doris and was treated kindly by the farmhand, but most others don’t have it so lucky.

It’s unlikely that a typical farmed cow would be given a name – they are usually treated as milk factories. They are forcibly made pregnant via artificial insemination and then have their babies removed from them so that humans can consume their milk. They are selectively bred to produce significantly more milk than they naturally would, and as a result, they often develop a painful udder condition called mastitis.  A third of dairy cows suffer lameness as a result of being forced to stand on hard surfaces for long periods of time.  When a cow’s milk dries up, and her body finally wears out, she is sent to the slaughterhouse for meat.

Many people choose to give up meat, recognizing the harm that comes from killing the animals for our consumption.  But they don’t always stop to think about the suffering endured by dairy cows and egg laying hens in producing dairy and eggs for human consumption.  A vegan diet is the best way to avoid causing animal suffering.